Scion of the Flying Beatdown EDH

Commander / EDH Dragons Flying Ramp

MGlBlaze

Land (38)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Bayou
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Canopy Vista
• 1x Cinder Glade
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 1x Forest
• 1x Haven of the Spirit Dragon
• 1x Island
• 1x Krosan Verge
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Plains
• 1x Plateau
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Scrubland
• 1x Snow-Covered Forest
• 1x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Snow-Covered Mountain
• 1x Snow-Covered Plains
• 1x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Tolaria West
• 1x Tropical Island
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Creature (29)

• 1x Birds of Paradise *f-pre*
• 1x Bloom Tender
• 1x Dragonlord's Servant
• 1x Dragonspeaker Shaman
• 1x Faeburrow Elder
• 1x Taurean Mauler
• 1x Dromoka, the Eternal
• 1x Maelstrom Archangel
• 1x Scourge of Valkas
• 1x Crosis, the Purger
• 1x Dragonlord Dromoka
• 1x Dragonlord Kolaghan
• 1x Hellkite Charger
• 1x Hellkite Tyrant
• 1x Hoard-Smelter Dragon
• 1x Lathliss, Dragon Queen *f-pre*
• 1x Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius
• 1x Ramos, Dragon Engine
• 1x Savage Ventmaw
• 1x Scourge of the Throne
• 1x Silumgar, the Drifting Death
• 1x Steel Hellkite *f-pre*
• 1x Teneb, the Harvester
• 1x Balefire Dragon
• 1x Bladewing the Risen
• 1x Morophon, the Boundless
• 1x Nicol Bolas
• 1x Utvara Hellkite
• 1x The Ur-Dragon

Enchantment (6)

• 1x Dragon Tempest
• 1x Elemental Bond
• 1x Temur Ascendancy
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Kindred Discovery
• 1x Palace Siege

Instant (1)

• 1x Cyclonic Rift

Commander (1)

Artifact (14)

• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Coalition Relic
• 1x Dragon's Hoard *f-pre*
• 1x Herald's Horn
• 1x Vessel of Endless Rest
• 1x Belbe's Portal
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Vanquisher's Banner

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Earthquake
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Crux of Fate
• 1x Unburial Rites
• 1x Dragonstorm

Planeswalker (3)

• 1x Sarkhan Vol
• 1x Sarkhan the Mad
• 1x Sarkhan Unbroken

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Sideboard

Instant (8)

• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Fierce Guardianship

Creature (4)

• 1x Ramunap Excavator
• 1x Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
• 1x Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
• 1x Worldgorger Dragon

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Dance of the Dead
• 1x Necromancy

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Idyllic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Tutor

Artifact (3)

• 1x Everflowing Chalice
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Crucible of Worlds

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Maybeboard

Land (10)

• 1x Bad River
• 1x Bant Panorama
• 1x Esper Panorama
• 1x Flood Plain
• 1x Grasslands
• 1x Grixis Panorama
• 1x Jund Panorama
• 1x Mountain Valley
• 1x Naya Panorama
• 1x Rocky Tar Pit

Artifact (4)

• 1x Fist of Suns
• 1x Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1x Quicksilver Amulet
• 1x Thran Dynamo

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Merciless Eviction

Creature (4)

• 1x Dragon Whelp
• 1x Shivan Dragon
• 1x Atarka, World Render
• 1x Hellkite Overlord

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This is something of a project deck of mine; my end-goal is to optimise it further (get it to something like an 8/10 or thereabouts on the vague 'power scale') and foil it out as much as I can. This is all a work in progress, so any suggestions are welcome - including "Maybeboard" options that would let me de-power and slow down the deck if needed for a better play experience against people who might have weaker decks with them.

Other Sideboard options are intended to include power-up options for when the deck should be pushed to a more competitive level - most of the mainboard cards that would be swapped out are the creatures and most of the Sarkhan variations.

The General Strategy

The main strategy is the typical Dragon tribal strategy; get as many rocks and accelerants out as possible, fix your mana as soon as possible, and start doing a lot of nonsense. The main win condition is the combo between Scourge of Valkas and Utvara Hellkite to provide explosive damage when a group of dragons attack.

This is supplemented by secondary options in Lathliss, Dragon Queen , Dragonstorm , the various incarnations of Sarkhan, and Dragon Tempest .

Choices in board wipes are those that take advantage of the fact that Dragons will usually be the biggest stuff on the board and are in the air ( Toxic Deluge and Earthquake ), allowing the deck to usually take down other players' creatures while leaving your own intact. Toxic Deluge in particular can bypass the effect of Indestructible. Crux of Fate is also an obvious choice in a deck that primarily runs dragon creatures, as it can be used to simply destroy any creature that isn't a dragon. Not to mention Cyclonic Rift which you should probably auto-include in any EDH deck that has blue as a colour. Even some of the dragons themselves can act as board wipes; Silumgar, the Drifting Death is like Toxic Deluge on a stick, and Balefire Dragon basically causes each of your dragons to also drop napalm when they hit the opponent's face.

Two other explosive cards in the deck is Scourge of the Throne ; swing it at the player with the most life, and you untap all of your creatures and get a second combat phase that turn. Hellkite Charger similarly can provide additional combat phases; not being limited to one per turn, but by how many times you can pay the 5RR cost. Sarkhan the Mad can similarly explode, and if he hits the field while you have any kind of board presence, he can immediately use his -4 and potentially outright remove a player from the game.

A number of options for graveyard recursion like Vessel of Endless Rest , Teneb, the Harvester , Bladewing the Risen , Unburial Rites and Palace Siege in Khans mode provide some resilience to opposing board wipes and destruction, and to re-use Scion's main activated ability.

There are also a couple of "cheat" options. Belbe's Portal to get things out under-costed, Maelstrom Archangel that can try and get some creatures out for free, and Mimic Vat to let something cheat death to my own benefit. The Ur-Dragon is a decent commander for the deck, but he's better part of the 99 so Scion can pull him out at a convenient time to cheat something out and draw cards from declaring your attacks.

Sarkhan Unbroken can also pull every dragon creature out of the library and on to the battlefield with his ultimate; but realistically if you were able to get that to activate, you were winning already - he is mostly included as combined card draw and mana ramp. Ramos, Dragon Engine and Savage Ventmaw can also produce a lot of mana for the deck to function - Ramos in particular can build up a lot of +1/+1 counters very quickly thanks to being a 5-colour deck.

I have also included an abundance of sources of Haste ( Sarkhan Vol , Temur Ascendancy , Lightning Greaves , Dragonlord Kolaghan ) to allow the deck to apply rapid pressure and make sure generated tokens can start flying in immediately. Considering the high CMC of a lot of the deck's creatures; the less time spent waiting for summoning sickness to pass, the better.

More niche and situational but still powerful inclusions are as follows;

• Nicol Bolas - you will usually be fetching out with Scion and he can shut down any single opponent that doesn't make heavy use of the graveyard.

• Crosis, the Purger - Kind of a baby Nicol Bolas; only forces discards of a single colour, but doesn't include the upkeep cost.

• Dragonlord Dromoka - Shuts down counterspells and anything played at instant speed to prevent interference.

• Hellkite Tyrant - Allows you to steal opponents' artifacts for yourself, and comes with the possibility of an additional win condition.

• Hoard-Smelter Dragon - Secondary artifact hate

• Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius - Primarily useful for card draw, but if you have an abundance of RB mana he can end up doing a lot of damage over the course of a few turns as well.

I have added a couple of cards to my personal taste; Tolaria West taps for blue and acts as fixing when cast for its Transmute cost, which allows you to fetch a land or some other CMC0 card - in my case Mox Diamond or Chrome Mox .

The snow-covered Secret Lair lands are there just because I want them there, likewise with the Rebecca Guay foil lands and the foil Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse - I find the art on T.E. and that Evolving Wilds printing to be suitably dramatic and fitting for a deck full of dragons, even if I'd be better served with better fetch lands.

Taurean Mauler is again there mostly for my own amusement, though it can quickly grow out of control; either someone uses removal on it, or it tramples their face. It is also one of the few cheaper creatures in the deck; and since it's a Changeling I could even pull it out with Scion if I really wanted to.

Tune-up: the Sideboard

I've fitted out the sideboard as a suite of options to power up the deck and push it closer to competitive territory. I have yet to actually have ownership of most of these, so this also doubles as "future plans" to an extent.

• Worldgorger Dragon combos with Animate Dead , Dance of the Dead and Necromancy for infinite mana and ETB effects. This is a favourite of pretty much any cEDH deck.

• Tutors in general increase consistency and allow you to go straight for your needed combo pieces.

• Cheap counterspells like Swan Song and Mana Drain can protect your combo or disrupt opposing combos as needed. Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast are good choices for this deck, as there is already a lot of red in the deck and most counterspells or disruptive instants are in blue.

• Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon can be a mono-black commander unto itself, and offers the potential to immediately remove another player from the game. Especially when fetched out of the deck with Scion in combination with abusing how the stack works with a Firebreathing style activated ability.

Tune-down: the Maybeboard

The maybeboard here basically has the exact opposite purpose to the sideboard; these are cards to slow the deck down and make it less explosive to act as a better fit for more casual Commander play. This can be combined with swapping the commander to The Ur-Dragon or another 5-colour commander that removes access to Scion's "tutor on a stick."

The Mirage 'slow fetches' Bad River , Flood Plain , Grasslands , Mountain Valley and Rocky Tar Pit still allow for mana fixing and pulling out non-basic dual lands, but are... well, slow.

Alara's Bant Panorama , Esper Panorama , Grixis Panorama , Jund Panorama and Naya Panorama can tap for a colourless mana and can be sacrificed to get a basic land. Again, still allowing for mana fixing while being less explosive.

More fair and symmetrical wrath effects remove the one-sided removal that the default deck-list provide to (hopefully) reduce salt potential. I've chosen the classic Wrath of God , as well as Nevinyrral's Disk and Merciless Eviction .

Also included are some less spectacular dragons, including the somewhat iconic Shivan Dragon to replace the usual game-ending suspects with something more manageable.

I forsee the main weakness of this deck being control decks. When a deck has a very high average CMC, it would be difficult to function in the face of repeated counterspells or other methods of shutting things down if you're limited in what you can get out each turn. Though on the flip side, since almost everything is at least a somewhat important target, it would be difficult to chose exactly what gets answered and what doesn't.

That and, being a five-colour deck that relies on fetch lands and non-basic lands to fix mana quickly, anyone that plays a Blood Moon , Blood Sun or a Magus of the Moon will hit the 'off' switch on a lot of the deck. But in that case, a lot of dragons are mono-red and the deck has an abundance of mana rocks, so it does still have a chance of working through Blood Moon anyway.

Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Five Color 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Ramp 4 years ago
Date added	4 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	19 - 5 Mythic Rares 56 - 9 Rares 9 - 5 Uncommons 5 - 2 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	4.32
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Dragon 4/4 R, Dragon 5/5 R, Dragon 6/6 R, Spirit 1/1 C, Treasure
Folders	Commander EDH