Creature (18)
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Artifact (2)
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(*Not yet finished... not sure if I'm going to finish it though.)
The five clans we got to know in the last set are still here, and for each you'll find a new Khan in charge. But now instead of revering the qualities of extinct dragons, the clans are revering and battling very-much-alive dragons!
In addition to the five clans, The Fate Reforged set features five legendary dragons!
Each dragon and its brood is associated with an allied color pair. For each brood, a dominant dragon has arisen to rule over them. And it's these mighty Legendary Dragons that are particularly revered by one of each of the five clans.
These five dragon lords are distinct in appearance, personality, and deadly breath attack.
With the new Legendary Dragons in FRF all having, "Whenever a dragon attacks..." effects I wanted to figure out a way to swarm the field with plenty of cheap dragons to trigger these effects multiple times a turn.
Abusing and breaking these cards is possible but it is kind of tricky...
There is a card however that puts out Dragon Tokens.
Brood Keeper | Art by Scott Murphy
Brood Keeper is like Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones. Her hatched dragons are the first seen in the world for hundreds of years, earning her the sobriquet Mother of Dragons. There hasn't been dragons in Tarkir for awhile either, and not many decks in Standard magic are based around Dragons until now. And this deck aims to teach opponents the same thing Game of Thrones teaches viewers... Never mess with the Mother of Dragons!
Instead of playing a bunch of mana costly dragon creatures, our plan is to generate multiple tokens off of our cards, mainly Brood Keeper , and then pump them with anthem effects. When you got them all buffed up and ready to roll... or rather fly then release the dragons in all their fiery breathing glory and in one big draconic bombing run finish them off.
How it Works:
Brood Keeper Whenever an Aura becomes attached to it, put a 2/2 red Dragon creature token with flying onto the battlefield.
Then you get a Riptide Chimera into play (or Floodtide Serpent or the one-shot spell Kiora's Dismissal ) so you return an enchantment-"aura" to your hand, only to recast it again on Brood Keeper and put another token out.
Cheap Auras
Hammerhand target creature cannot block as an ETB effect is great when you bounce it back to hand and replay it every turn it's like a free Blinding Flare to clear a path for your Dragons.
Dragon Mantle the draw a card when it ETB's is really nice when you bounce it back to hand and replay it every turn it's like having two draws.
Fate Foretold Another draw ETB aura.
Fate Reforged Global Enchantments = 2 card effects in 1
Frontier Siege a turn |OR| each time a flying creature (which is basically everything in this deck even the tokens) enters the battlefield you can have it Fight one of their creatures.
Citadel Siege double +1/+1 counters a turn |OR| a mini-Ojutai effect, tap their creatures.
Monastery Siege Draw 2 cards then discard 1 which helps you draw into a cheap enchantment or the Sharknado combo piece Riptide Chimera |OR| make their removal spells and burn spells cost more.
The Riptide Chimera let's you return them and rechoose Khans or Dragons when they are recasted so you can change it up in the middle of the match.
i.e.: Use Frontier Siege early for the mana Ramp. Return it to hand and recast it for the fight effect each time you have a flying token or dragon come into play.
Dromoka, the Eternal requires this deck be .
(Your going to need some of the better lands to make it work; Flooded Strand, Wooded Foothills, Windswept Heath, Shivan Reef, Yavimaya Coast, Battlefield Forge)
I like the fact you strengthen your weakest creature via bolster 2. This is important in any token themed strategy. She truly shines when you attack with multiple dragons and Bolster multiple times in a turn. Things can get out of hand quickly for the opponent when before you know it those tokens go from 2/2's to becoming 4/4, 6/6, 8/8... And combine this with a few Crucible of Fire for +3/+3 and you're set!
A three color variant is possible with any of the blue OR red legendary dragons.
Silumgar, the Drifting Death . Basically equals a boardwipe. All their creatures get -1/-1 for each attacking Dragon. Attack with a moderate amount even and you'll completely decimate their board. It won't be long after that the damage builds up and overcomes the opponent.
Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury . Constant assault on the opponent, don't let them sit back and relaX. This cards effect can be really powerful if you got a bunch of dragons. When one attacks creatures you control get +1/+0 until end of turn. Now consider you should have multiple dragons attacking that's amplified to like +5/+0 to each creature making each little 2/2 a 7/2 instead! It won't take long with these amounts of damage. Give them all Trample via something like Archetype of Aggression and watch it trickle over blockers even to hit home.
Ojutai, Soul of Winter . Basically makes your entire board full of creatures indefensible. Each dragon attacking lets you tap one of their creatures and it doesn't untap during their next turn. You basically put them on lockdown.
Atarka, World Render . Gives all your dragons Double Strike. If they weren't 2/2's this might matter. Still having them all hit for 4 instead of 2 is quite powerful.
Other Dragons brought in in FRF. There are 11 and 18 total in Standard.
Generate the tempo through mana acceleration via Generator Servant which lets us get any 5 CMC spell out by T3. It's no Seething Song but it's good mana ramp that'll improve your board presence greatly. And you should take advantage of it by casting any of the powerful dragons you have in hand. Don't forget they come with hasty flying evasion ready to attack before the opponent knows what happened.
Getting a Dromoka, the Eternal or Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury out on T3 is a strong start to the game and could be a strong finish to it within a couple subsequent turns. Anything with 5 power coming out early puts them on a four turn clock. Find an answer immediately or perish. Also putting one of the FRF dragons out so early only plays into your strategy later when all the dragon tokens start to flow out from Brood Keeper.
Saving a couple of Generator Servants up and sac'ing them all at once gives you the ability to play anything in the deck especially considering you have Frontier Siege too. Don't forget that Sarkhan the planeswalker is castable too. Yes, it's not a creature but by using his +1 right away he can become one. A 4/4 dragon with flying AND haste. You can use the generated mana on anything. It's there to be used.
Other Aura's
There are OTHER AURAS you can use alongside the Brood Keeper and Riptide Chimera combo.
Aqueous Form can give the Brood Keeper some cheap evasion. Unblockable so it cannot be picked off in combat. Basically it turns it into a Scry each turn effect. Which helps set up your draws.
Stratus Walk Another draw ETB aura. Gives the Brood Keeper flying which is perfect if you want to swing with it and not get it killed in combat. Also flying fits in with the whole flavor of Dragons theme we got going on.
Chosen by Heliod Another draw ETB aura. Give Brood Keeper +0/+2, making it a better blocker.
Karametra's Favor could be of use especially in a 4 color deck. Play this, drawing a card, and enchant the Brood Keeper, putting out a token. Then tap the Brood Keeper to use 1 mana of any color you need to cast another card from hand. Riptide Chimera makes you return this on your next upkeep. Play it again. It's not as cheap as the Dragon Mantle but it's way more useful in this deck.
Scourgemark another draw one.
Thunderous Might You'll have to consider if this is worth it in a deck that we're expanding outside of Mono-Red but you'll likely still have a good amount of Red Devotion for it's +X effect and remember you're looking for cheap enchantments to bounce and replay to trigger tokens into play. That's all you should care about in looking at cards - is cheap CMC.
Dragon Grip Flashable. Can trick them into blocking your 2/3 Brood Keeper. When they do just buff it +2/+0 to a 4/3 and ping off their creature they thought would survive. If your going to be trading deadly blows and fear losing your Dragon token engine, don't.... it also will have First Strike so you'll kill whatever it is first.
Oracle's Insight is a tad bit costly but to Scry then Draw it's kinda a good effect to have. Especially on a creature that you don't want attacking because your afraid to lose it like Brood Keeper. You'll want that engine in play so that it keeps putting out a token creature everytime an aura comes into play on it.
Epiphany Storm giving Brood Keeper a Dakra Mystic -like effect to draw.
Flamespeaker's Will just another cheap enchant-aura to trigger Brood Keeper and be recasted after being bounced to hand.
Invisibility also combos with Siege Dragon who destroys all Walls.
Fearsome Temper It'll make your Brood Keeper a 4/5 and give it an ability to be unblocked. You can spend the mana to do that and still bounce it back to hand.
Interesting thing about these is you can leave them on for a few turns, before the enchanted creature reaches 3 counters you can bounce them back to hand to pump and buff up another creature and re-use them. And if you want their effect at any time re-cast them on to a creature with 3 counters already on it and attack. The check of whether the enchanted creature has three or more +1/+1 counters on it happens as part of the resolution of the attack triggered ability. You wont sacrifice the Ordeal until the next time the creature attacks. When it does,.boom you got an Instant draw 2 or instant 3 dmg burn spell to creature or player.
What about other cards that put out tokens of creatures, Supplant Form, Clever Impersonator, Fated Infatuation etc.
Clever Impersonator is the most interesting inclusion of the three listed here. It can enter as a copy of whatever you want. A creature, a enchantment, a artifact, or even a planeswalker. You can copy a Crucible for +6/+6 dragons. You can copy a big dragon creature and just have two big dragon creatures. You can even copy an opponent's Sarkhan and both may stay on the battlefield as long as they're controlled by different players according to the new rules...
Anthem effects
Crucible of Fire is your best Anthem effect for a Dragon Tribal deck. Some might disagree and say Crucible of Fire really just isn't very good, that dragons are big enough on their own right which makes Crucible of Fire unnecessary. Unless we get a lot of cheap aggressive dragons (which we do). Running a deck around Dragons it doesn't seem like a pointless card to me. I can see how it could be considered redundant or superfluous especially before we get the upcoming dragon cards I'm expecting. I'm sure the deck could win without it but it's not pointless or without use with it in there either. A waste of excess mana maybe but if you think it's not required just sideboard it out.
Obelisk of Urd A +2/+2 anthem effect is better than all the normal +1/+1 ones. It effects all of one type, so choose Dragon and don't look back. You can even tap the tokens to cheapen it's cost and cast it with convoke for a lot cheaper than 6 mana.
Hall of Triumph Choose Red and all your Dragon tokens get become 3/3's.
Paragon of Fierce Defiance I like this guy because all the red tokens get +1/+1 and you can give things Haste. I wish it was more like Hammer of Purphoros or Archetype of Aggression and gives all creatures the effect because that's ultimately what your looking for in a Tribal or Token themed deck.
If you go White, making this a Jeskai Red/White/Blue deck you could include more Anthem effects like Spear of Heliod , Dictate of Heliod , and Jeskai Charm - which functions as a one-shot anthem effect and potentially a large dose of lifegain.)
Dragon Throne of Tarkir is like a pseudo-Xenagos, God of Revels except it massive covering all your creatures you control and not just one target creature. It's just BETTER! Also it doesn't count a target creatures power but the one creature equipped so you can build just one creature up and end up buffing all your creatures for just 2 mana. Which is cost efficient if you ask me. It basically becomes a one-shot Anthem effect that's repeatable each turn. You don't need to do it on the creature with the most power either. Putting it on Brood Keeper is usually enough to give a +X/+X of +4/+4 with other enchants boosting her power and don't forget other anthem effects that buff red creatures also buff her power too and work in combination with this. So just enchant and aura up the Brood Keeper - raising it's power fairly high - then tap it via this equipment to buff all your Dragon Tokens at once. Swing in for massive damage. You won't be attacking with the Brood Keeper much anyways so might as well get some use out of it besides it's hatching dragons ability. (NOTE: There might be a place to run Hoarding Dragon and Shrapnel Blast too with Dragon Throne of Tarkir, Obelisk of Urd, and Hall of Triumph. Tutor them out but you would need to kill off the Dragon to get them to hand. Shrapnel Blast could give you the direct damage you need to finish them off.)
Token Creatures
The major offenders in this deck are your dragon hatchling tokens. Don't forget that all your dragon tokens also have "R: This creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn." If you don't have Forgestoker Dragon out as a mana dump you can use these abilities and tap out your mana to get that extra bit of power. Trick your opponent into blocking and then buff them when they forget you have untapped mana is always a fun move.
Hordeling Outburst continues the token theme and allows you to go wider with too many creatures - more than they can handle. They all will receive the same anthem buffs as your dragon tokens because they are red all the same. Sometimes you don't have a board presence early in the game. You can cast one of these early to hold off the enemy and use the tokens as chump blockers to get you bye in the meantime. Besides all that it's just such a great card with many options on how to play it and what decks it fits into.
Creatures: The Dragons...
Aside from those we already went over how important they are as main cards to this deck strategy ( Brood Keeper, Generator Servant, Riptide Chimera
Stormbreath Dragon Purpose is serves: First of all it's the best Dragon card in Standard right now. You gotta include it but it really isn't the star of the show in this deck. Besides getting it out on T3 via Generator Servant it often is just another flying dragon to attack with in the mid-game.
Forgestoker Dragon Purpose it serves: Besides bouncing Hammerhand with Riptide Chimera this guy will function as a mana dump that you can use to clear a path for all your attacking creatures. For just 2 mana you can make target creature unable to block. If they have little toughness you can even ping them off.
Hoarding Dragon Purpose it serves: To tutor up a artifact for those times when you're not drawing Hall of Triumph or Dragon Throne of Tarkir to get the anthem effects going. You'll need to kill it off to get the artifact into your hand but it's only a 4/4 so attack with the purpose of blockers dealing lethal damage to it or block with the purpose of attackers dealing lethal damage to it, either way. If it becomes a problem just Stoke the Flames it.
Paragon of Fierce Defiance Purpose it servers: It itself is an anthem effect for pretty much all your creatures. It can give spot haste to anything for cheap.
Maybe Ideas:
Sometimes there are cards that you overlook the first time around. These are where suggestions come in handy so let them fly!
Barrage of Boulders is a great card for this deck. When you look at it through the lense of it's Ferocious ability it becomes a massive swing with all your tokens being unblockable. It's a finisher is what it is. You'll just need one creature with power 4 or greater. Plenty of Dragons meet this stipulation alone but also with aura's that buff your 3 power creatures +1/+1 when enchanted or with Anthem effects it's not going to be hard to have 4 power on something. This is also why i considered Crater's Claws & Icy Blast .
Eidolon of the Great Revel works wonders in a deck where you need time to set up and your not casting many low CMC spells. You won't control the early game with this deck so to keep the opponent in check you might need this little card that can potentially deal a lot of damage towards their 20 life. It's also great late game to stop the pesky low cost cards from happening too often without consequence.
Add Green and make this (Temur). If you add Green you can do a lot more Mana Ramping with the ever popular Sylvan Caryatid which can tap for any of the three colors you run. Mana Fix and Mana Ramp in one package is why it's so great. It would help get those high costing dragons out, and also give you another early creature since in testing that's what this deck struggles with. Getting a board presence early. You could even run another planeswalker. Nissa, Worldwaker . I love the untap 4 forests each turn for a 8 mana base just by running her. Plus you can give temporary anthem effects to all of the tokens +X/+X'ing them with Xenagos, God of Revels and other green buff spells.
Of all the clans, the Temur have the most respect for the natural order of Tarkir. They have chosen the claw of the Dragon (or Penguin - depending on who you ask) as their clan symbol. The Khan of the Temur even holds the title "Dragonclaw." I think making this Dragon Deck a Temur color wedge deck is more than suiting.
Go BLACK? Why?
Crux of Fate is an upcoming card in Fate Reforged that will be powerful in and against this deck. For 5 mana, 3BB, you can cast this and choose one. - Destroy all Dragon creatures. OR - Destroy all non-Dragon creatures. If we decide to include black to make this a Rakdos deck then it would be a good card to run.
Also let's not forget about Morph. The clans have co-opted ancient "draconic" magic to disguise their strength and create ambushes for each other. This is represented by Morph cards. I expect to see the new sets include morph permanents, not only creatures either. (see the card Trail of Mystery for why.) The great thing about Morph is you can pay 3 of any color then morph anytime making them be what they're suppose to be, and often triggering an effect in the process.
Stoke the Flames is also another card that loves tokens synergy. Tap any 4 creatures and Convoke it out casting it for free. You'll almost never have to pay anything for it. The artwork on both versions is amazing too and fits in with Dragon theme. ( Stoke the Flames )
Stoke The Flames | Art by Mathias Kollros
Creature (18)3x Brood Keeper1x Forgestoker Dragon4x Generator Servant1x Hoarding Dragon2x Paragon of Fierce Defiance4x Riptide Chimera3x Stormbreath DragonLand (20)8x Island10x Mountain2x Shivan ReefEnchantment (10)3x Crucible of Fire2x Dragon Mantle4x Hammerhand1x Stratus WalkArtifact (6)2x Dragon Throne of Tarkir2x Hall of Triumph2x Obelisk of UrdSorcery (4)2x Barrage of Boulders2x Hordeling OutburstPlaneswalker (2)2x Sarkhan, the DragonspeakerSideboard (15)1x Brood Keeper2x Clever Impersonator1x Crucible of Fire1x Dragon Grip2x Dragon Mantle1x Hoarding Dragon1x Hordeling Outburst2x Obelisk of Urd1x Stormbreath Dragon3x Stratus WalkMaybeboard (21)2x Crater's Claws1x Crucible of the Spirit Dragon1x Dragon's Eye Savants1x Eidolon of the Great Revel1x Ensoul Artifact1x Fate Foretold1x Floodtide Serpent1x Furnace Whelp1x Hammer of Purphoros1x Icy Blast1x Kiora's Dismissal1x Shivan Dragon1x Shockmaw Dragon1x Shrapnel Blast1x Siege Dragon1x Spawn of Thraxes4x Stoke the Flames
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| Date added | 9 years |
| Last updated | 9 years |
| Legality | This deck is not Standard legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 2 - 2 Mythic Rares 23 - 5 Rares 8 - 6 Uncommons 12 - 2 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 3.32 |
| Tokens | Dragon 2/2 R |
| Folders | Outdated Standard Decks - Finished |
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