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This is a deck for the truest fans of Dragons in Magic. I believe it to be the quintessential Dragon Tribal Commander deck. Competitive? Of course not. Fun? Absolutely.

I've always enjoyed Dragons in Magic, and as I've gotten into Commander, I've had a habit of choosing Dragons as my commanders. However, building decks around Crosis, Treva, Intet, and Niv-Mizzet didn't satisfy me completely because they were not Dragon decks--just decks built around a Dragon. Realizing this and having a bit of jealousy for a friend's Dragon Tribal deck, I had to build my own around Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund, and it worked great for a long time. However, Commander 2017 released a brand new badass commander for Dragon Tribal in the form of The Ur-Dragon, and I, like a lot of other Karrthus players I've noticed, could not help but convert to The Ur-Dragon.

My Karrthus deck is being disassembled to make this deck happen IRL (but I'm still going to keep its most recent deck list on tappedout). As such, I am free to include as many of the wonderful things I already bought for Karrthus as I feel are necessary for The Ur-Dragon. With so many elements coming from an aggressive Jund Dragon deck, it's only natural that this deck is a bit more aggressive than some other Ur-Dragon decks that were built from the ground up. Also, having a $400+ dragon deck to start with and buying the entire pre-con from a buddy allows me to up the budget for things outside of what I already have. As a result, even though $300-400 is my typical budget when building a new Commander deck from scratch, this deck cost me about $350 in cards I've had to buy and has the highest total value of any of my decks.

Aside from the obvious focus of putting Dragons on the board to smash faces, this deck has a few focuses that drove card selection: cost reduction, mana fixing, tribal support, and recursion. Most non-Dragon cards in the deck (and some of the Dragons, too) are in the deck either to ramp or to further these focal points. Unlike my Karrthus deck, it is important to this deck to do a few things other than hit hard, so most of Karrthus's Dragons that were there to deal lots of damage didn't make the cut for the Ur-Dragon. There are still a few Dragons like that in this deck, but there are far more that provide useful triggered abilites or other effects. You could say the Ur-Dragon has more refined tastes.

The color fixing and mana base in this deck are fantastic, and I can tell there would be room for it to improve further with a bigger budget. A healthy, but not excessive, mana rock count helps make the colored mana this deck needs, and almost all lands in this deck with the exception of Homeward Path and Volrath's Stronghold produce colored mana. All of the basic lands are snow lands to maximize the odds that I will be able to activate Rimescale Dragon's ability. Kodama's Reach, Cultivate, Explosive Vegitation, and Prismatic Omen all help this deck get the land types it needs or further boost the mana pool. Plus, lands like Cavern of Souls, Haven of the Spirit Dragon, Command Tower, Unclaimed Territory, and Path of Ancestry all can read as ": Add one mana of any color to your mana pool." in some context.

The cost reducers in this deck are many and can quicken the pace of this deck if what's important is getting a big body out as soon as possible. However, the deck often prefers to play support cards before it starts spitting out Dragons, so that can lead to a back-up of Dragons while cost reducers are put in play and support cards are dropped. After some supports are out with cost reduction, this deck is often able to cast two or more Dragons per turn far quicker than my Karrthus deck was ever capable. As a result, it has a far more "bursty" style than Karrthus; Karrthus used to gradually build up to a threatening board presence over the course of multiple turns, but The Ur-Dragon can go from almost no board presence to an immediate threat with just one turn.

Without this deck's tribal support cards, it might never pose any serious damage threat before turn 8 or 9. Early game has to find a balance between ramping and playing tribal supports so that when Dragons start coming out, they are very serious threats. Some of the best of these cards include Warstorm Surge, Gratuitous Violence, Sight of the Scalelords, Door of Destinies, and Dragon Tempest. Other support cards like Sarkhan's Triumph, Elemental Bond, and Temur Ascendancy all help to keep the momentum going so that there are always Dragons to replace the ones that are answered. Sarkhan Unbroken can passively help things along with his +1, but may also contribute to the storm of Dragons raging above him if he needs extra protection. The dream is to get his ultimate off, but no pod of sane, competent players would let him live that long.

The recursion in this deck is also there to help maintain momentum through mill and discard decks, but it can help to regain lost momentum after a board wipe or unfortunate counterspell as well. Teneb, the Harvester, Volrath's Stronghold, Oversold Cemetery, and Journey to Eternity   are all easily repeatable sources of recursion, while Beacon of Unrest, Haven of the Spirit Dragon, and Bladewing the Risen are more for when something important urgently needs to return. With so much potential recursion, this deck can happily draw large numbers of cards through The Ur-Dragon's triggered ability, Elemental Bond, and Temur Ascendancy and not worry over-much about dropping Dragons to the grave for hand limit.

Let me know what you think. All feedback is welcome, and I would love to know if you can find room to make this deck run more smoothly. As it stands now, I'm probably going to be unwilling to spend any more money on this deck for a while, so any big changes will not happen in the near future, but if it's a single card or two that can make the deck run better, I'll go for it.

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99% Casual

Competitive

Date added 6 years
Last updated 7 months
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

18 - 0 Mythic Rares

45 - 0 Rares

24 - 0 Uncommons

5 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 4.76
Tokens Dragon 1/1 RG, Dragon 4/4 R, Dragon 5/5 R, Dragon 6/6 R, Inkling 2/1 WB, Treasure
Folders Draconic Domination upgrades
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