An attempt to break away from building control

Commander / EDH

benouttait

Land (37)

• 1x Alchemist's Refuge
• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dust Bowl
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 1x Forest
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Haven of the Spirit Dragon
• 1x Homeward Path
• 1x Island
• 1x Krosan Verge
• 1x Miren, the Moaning Well
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Vault of the Archangel
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Winding Canyons
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Dack Fayden

Creature (23)

• 1x Anger
• 1x Boneyard Scourge
• 1x Dragonlord Dromoka
• 1x Dragonlord Kolaghan
• 1x Dragonlord Ojutai
• 1x Eternal Dragon
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Flameblast Dragon
• 1x Harbinger of the Hunt
• 1x Hellkite Tyrant
• 1x Intet, the Dreamer
• 1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
• 1x Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius
• 1x Rith, the Awakener
• 1x Scalelord Reckoner
• 1x Shadowmage Infiltrator
• 1x Skyline Despot
• 1x Snapcaster Mage
• 1x Teneb, the Harvester
• 1x Utvara Hellkite
• 1x Wasitora, Nekoru Queen
• 1x Xenagos, God of Revels
• 1x Yosei, the Morning Star

Enchantment (13)

• 1x Dragon Tempest
• 1x Exploration
• 1x Ghostly Prison
• 1x Kindred Discovery
• 1x Mirri's Guile
• 1x Oversold Cemetery
• 1x Pernicious Deed
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1x Privileged Position
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Temur Ascendancy

Commander (1)

Sorcery (13)

• 1x Crux of Fate
• 1x Faithless Looting
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Life from the Loam
• 1x Merciless Eviction
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Night's Whisper
• 1x Painful Truths
• 1x Recross the Paths
• 1x Spoils of Victory
• 1x Tempt with Discovery
• 1x Tragic Arrogance
• 1x Wheel of Fortune

Instant (8)

• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Commit / Memory
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Fact or Fiction
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Oblation
• 1x Sultai Charm
• 1x Utter End

Artifact (4)

• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots

---

Friends started mentioning that I try to lock down the board too often, so I tried to make a more creature-focused stompy-ish deck with the Ur-Dragon. I didn't want to appear threatening, or spawn out a bunch of high cost creatures just to walk into a boardwipe, so I tried to make the deck around the concept of playing a dragon or two at a time and riding that, with my removal and boardwipes affecting my own board as minimally as possible.

... I'll admit it's hard to give up the desire to build control, though I'm trying to force myself to use dragons instead of smaller, more utilitarian creatures.

After a couple test games, my primary concerns are that I have no graveyard control, I may be running a few too many utility lands, and I feel I don't have enough card draw in the deck.

Update 3/4/18: After several games of the deck really only having land-search to play early game if it had it, I've added a bunch of card draw to try to accelerate things to the point it can actually start interacting.

Recent untested additions:

Skyline Despot - Card draw of sorts, and in slower games, ideally a source of more dragons.

Wasitora, Nekoru Queen - Just there as a cheap dragon with a removal effect.

Ghostly Prison, Propaganda - With an ideal board state of 0-2 creatures, something to dissuade attacks is nice, as well as protect myself from swarms.

Commit//Memory - My current only 'counterspell', being able to double as board removal is nice, as well as dealing with uncounterables. Being a timetwister effect from the graveyard is nice as well. At four mana though it does feel a bit expensive for what it does.

Shadowmage Infiltrator, Brainstorm, Fact or Fiction, Frantic Search, Faithless Looting, Night's Whisper, Painful Truths, Phyrexian Arena - Just for draw to help stabilize early game.

Current cards under consideration to chop in no particular order on this pass:

Dack Fayden - An earlier build ran a few more planeswalkers, but with the idealized game plan of playing one or two dragons at a time, it felt too hard to effectively defend.

Wasitora, Nekoru Queen - A cheap dragon, but the effect just feels rather weak for what the deck needs.

Haven of the Spirit Dragon - The emergency recursion is nice (especially with Crucible of Worlds), but the fact it's colored mana only for dragons (of which there's only a total of 18) is a detriment.

Life from the Loam - Feels a bit overkill to recur fetchlands, and haven't really encountered much land destruction.

Privileged Position - I hope to not play a board with a lot of high-threat removal targets other than creatures, and the initial choice was really to keep my dragons from being targeted anyway. So maybe a cheaper option like Steely Resolve, or even just accept the possibility and leave it to Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots.

Recross the Paths - The fact it gets nonbasics into play is nice, as well as its potential reusability... but the uncontrolled nature is unappealing. Might consider Reap and Sow, Sylvan Scrying, or Hour of Promise instead.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	6 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 60 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	4.00
Tokens	Cat Dragon 3/3 BRG, Dragon 5/5 R, Dragon 6/6 R, Emblem Dack Fayden, Saproling 1/1 G, Spirit 1/1 C, The Monarch