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Dragon Ball URG

Commander / EDH Bracket 3 Dragons RUG (Temur)

ironwolf1

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Land (38)

Card Draw (7)

Dragons (24)

Responses, Protection, Haste (11)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Ureni of the Unwritten

Ramp (17)

Fun Nonsense Cards (2)

Maybeboard

Other (8)

Overview

Temur Dragons deck built from the remnants of my old Numot Jeskai Dragons deck after disassembling it to form 2 new decks. This list is dropping the control subtheme from the Numot list and focusing in fully on slapping down a bunch of big dragons with big ramp. Ureni of the Unwritten is the perfect commander to helm such a list, because they bring extra dragons with them on an ability that triggers on ETB and on attack, allowing for some explosive turns when Ureni can hit the field. And with access to green ramp plus all the mana rocks one could ever want, Ureni can be hitting the field a lot sooner than your opponents might expect for a 7 mana commander. And every time Ureni hits the battlefield or attacks, the dragon ball grows.

Deck Composition

Dragons

The most important component of the deck is the dragons. All in all, this deck contains 24 dragons, and that's about as low as I'm willing to go with the number. Dropping much lower runs the risk of coming up dry on the Ureni triggers, which feels really bad when you're digging 8 cards deep for nothing. The dragons themselves fall into a few sub-categories.

My big damage dragons are Atarka, World Render, Thrakkus the Butcher, and Scourge of the Throne. These 3 dragons all allow for massive damage to be dealt in a single combat through slightly different methods, and if I can have 2 of them out at the same time, at least 1 if not all 3 of my opponents are getting eaten by dragons. Thundermaw Dragon is another useful combat damage piece, as he hastily removes all flying blockers to allow for big swings in. Wrathful Red Dragon, Thunderbreak Regent, and Terror of the Peaks all provide noncombat damage in a few different ways that can punish my opponents for attempting to stop me from eating them with dragons.

There are several dragons in here that provide ramp functionality on a draconic body. Klauth, Unrivaled Ancientfoil is probably the best among these, even for 7 mana. Haste plus producing mana for each attacking creature means he can come in and immediately produce 8-10 mana if I have another dragon to swing with, allowing for Ureni casts and hand dumping, often at the same time. Savage Ventmaw is a similar effect, but a lot more toned down and fair. Galazeth Prismari, Goldspan Dragon, and Ganax, Astral Hunter all provide ramp in the form of treasure support. Galazeth doesn't produce the pure number of treasures that Goldspan and Ganax can, but turning all my treasures into Arcane Signets is well worth the 4 mana.

I also have a few dragons that provide some go-wide value. Lathliss, Dragon Queen is a great dragons for this purpose, basically making all my dragons that enter into 2 dragons. Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm is the most popular Temur dragons commander for a reason, doing basically what Lathliss does but even better because the extra dragons you get are copies of the dragon that entered rather than just generic 5/5s. Either of these cards hitting the battlefield will demand immediate responses from my opponents or else I'm probably gonna take over the game the next time I untap.

The final standalone category of dragons is my Niv Mizzet Combo category. I am running Niv-Mizzet, the Firemindfoil, Niv-Mizzet, Visionary, Niv-Mizzet, Parun, and the enchantment Curiosity to provide 2 pieces each of the 2 halves of the Niv Mizzet combo. I'm not necessarily searching for the combo or intending to win off of it, but it was the first combo I ever discovered in EDH back when I was running Numot and it holds a special place in my heart so I keep it in the deck. It feels very fair to me because it's limited by the size of my library, and there's a very real chance I will be unable to kill all 3 of my opponents off of the combo alone if no one is particularly low on life when I kick it off.

Ramp

The second most important slice of the deck here is ramp. I have 16 total ramp pieces in the deck alongside the 38 lands, and the ramp falls into 3 categories.

The first is cost reducers. I have a lot of cost reducers in the list, my favorites being Temur Battlecrier and Sarkhan, Soul Aflame. Battlecrier snowballs really hard, and can rapidly result in all my spells only costing their color pips during my turn. The creature Sarkhan reduces costs on my dragons, and also provides pseudo-haste by becoming a copy of any dragons entering and allowing me to get any of their attack triggers immediately after casting. Herald's Horn is also worth a shoutout here, because the upkeep topdeck check ability can also generate card advantage when it hits on a dragon.

The second category is mana rocks. I have a lot of the classics, but my favorites in this deck are Carnelian Orb of Dragonkind and Jade Orb of Dragonkind. They both help solve the #1 problem a dragon deck has, which is getting my dragons to survive long enough to attack someone. Carnelian Orb solves this by enabling hasty attacks, and Jade Orb solves this by giving my dragons protection during their summoning sickness so I actually get the chance to untap with them in play.

The third category is the classic green ramp sorceries. Rampant Growth, Farseek, Cultivate, and Kodama's Reach. They need no explanation, they are staples for a reason. I am considering whether some of the 4 mana double land ramp spells like Explosive Vegetation might be good to add as well, I just don't know what I'd cut for them.

Protection and Defense

Another key aspect of a functioning dragons deck is being able to protect your dragons from incoming spells and allow them to actually impact the game before getting destroyed or exiled. This is an area I may need to improve in the deck, but I will need to get some reps in with the deck and see how it performs before adjusting things here. I have a couple counterspells hanging around, the best of which being Stubborn Denial for my big creatures strategy. I also have a few spells focused on making it harder for my opponents to target my dragons in the first place. Monastery Siege is a modal enchantment that can help me dig if I need cards, and can give all my dragons pseudo-ward if my hand is already full of gas. Teferi's Veil is a funny little enchantment the EDHRECast guys put me on to, that makes my dragons phase out after attacking to get around any crackback removal or boardwipes on my opponent's turns. Heroic Intervention is another classic staple that needs no explanation. It's expensive for a reason.

I also consider haste enablers to be part of my dragon protection scheme, because I don't necessarily need my Ureni and my other dragons to survive a turn cycle around the table if they can just attack as soon as they hit the field. Dragon Tempest and Temur Ascendancy both provide haste enablement along with some other functions.

The weakest part of the whole deck is the spot removal and boardwipes. I am only running 2.5 pieces of spot removal and a single conditional board wipe in the deck. This may have to shift, but my hope is that my main response to someone else developing a threatening board state is to simply develop an even more threatening board state by slamming down dragons in massive quantities. URG isn't the best colors for removal, but there are some options beyond the barebones kit I have in here if I decide I need more responses.

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94% Casual

Competitive

Revision 4 See all

(1 day ago)

+1 Firkraag, Cunning Instigatorfoil main
-1 Niv-Mizzet, Visionary main