Izzet Dragons

Modern Blue Moon Burn Control Dragons UR (Izzet)

Hydrax

Land (23)

• 2x Frostboil Snarl
• 4x Island
• 5x Mountain
• 4x Scalding Tarn
• 4x Steam Vents
• 4x Sulfur Falls

Artifact (3)

• 2x Ratchet Bomb
• 1x Batterskull

Instant (16)

• 4x Lightning Bolt
• 4x Opt
• 4x Abrade
• 4x Counterspell

Planeswalker (6)

• 4x Sarkhan, Fireblood
• 1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
• 1x Ral Zarek

Creature (12)

• 4x Thunderbreak Regent
• 3x Glorybringer
• 4x Goldspan Dragon
• 1x Niv-Mizzet, Parun

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Sideboard

Artifact (9)

• 3x Tormod's Crypt
• 2x Damping Sphere
• 4x Dragon's Claw

Sorcery (2)

• 2x Sweltering Suns

Enchantment (4)

• 4x Blood Moon

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Alright, I took a long hiatus from Modern and a lot has changed, but this deck is resting in a lot of people's folders and they supported it back when it was a fun, gimmicky build.

I feel like I owe it to them to keep it updated, even though I wholeheartedly believe that going Mono-Red is way more consistent and much less expensive to build. That deck already exists and you can find it here:

Dragon Blitz

However, I will do my best to update this one.

Introduction

This deck is designed to control the board with cheap removal spells. Our opponent should not be allowed to build a board presence. During the first 3 or so turns, we should match whatever creatures they play with burn spells of our own.

If there's nothing to do, we cantrip, cycle or loot with Sarkhan, Fireblood to find what we need: a big scary dragon.

In the mid-game, we should be playing a dragon or two and then keeping mana available to protect those dragons and firm up our grip on control of the game. The goal is to ride our dragons to victory so be careful not to tap out and overextend. We are running cheap instant spells for a reason.

Individual Card Choices

Creatures

• Thunderbreak Regent fires a free Lightning Bolt at our opponent's face whenever they target one of our dragons with a spell or ability. So it punishes them for attempting to remove our dragons and is a decent 4/4 body with flying to provide some scary board presence.

• Glorybringer provides immediate value when it hits the board because it has haste, so it can fly in for damage right away. On top of that, we can Exert it to deal 4 targeted damage to one of our opponent's creatures. This is a great way to snipe a creature that our opponent is trying to keep out of trouble.

• Goldspan Dragon generates a Treasure token whenever it attacks or is targeted by a spell or ability. It also has Haste, meaning it can create a Treasure token immediately on the same turn it comes down. Furthermore, it lets Treasures tap for 2 mana without us having to sacrifice them. If this dragon is allowed to stick around, it lets us stockpile treasures and ramp us insanely further ahead of our opponent and even if they manage to get rid of it, we're still left with a treasure trove we can sac for mana whenever we want.

• Niv-Mizzet, Parun can ping any target for 1 damage whenever we draw a card. This is a great way to clear the ground of small creatures such as dorks like Noble Hierarch. However, he draws us a card whenever anyone casts an Instant or Sorcery spell. Since we have quite a few cheap ones, we can trigger his ping ability more than once per turn, allowing us to burn down a bigger creature if we need to. Of course, if we don't need to, we can just send all the damage at our opponent's face which will really whittle down their life total over the course of the game.

Planeswalkers

• Sarkhan, Fireblood helps accelerate our gameplan. His first ability allows us to ditch a dead card in hand for a new one, helping us dig for better resources. His second ability is pure ramp, giving us 2 mana to cast a Dragon card. His Ultimate can end games if the tokens aren't dealt with.

• Chandra, Torch of Defiance can help us ramp or deal some damage to a creature that's giving us trouble. We can also impulse draw and cast the exiled card if we want; if we do not, she deals 2 damage to our opponent. If we manage to ult her, the game doesn't last much longer after that.

• Ral Zarek is mainly in here for his +1 ability; it has quite a bit of utility. Firstly and most simply, it can just untap one of our lands so it's providing some light ramp. However, we can also untap one of our creatures after attacking. This is especially good with Glorybringer because the downside of Exert is that the creature does not naturally untap on our next untap step. However, with Ral's +1, we can Exert Glorybringer every turn and untap it immediately after, thus bypassing the downside of the ability. We can also use it to untap a Ratchet Bomb, in case we need to put another charge counter on it. Aside from that, Ral can simply Lightning Bolt a target if we need him to. If he sticks around long enough and we can ult him, we have the potential to take 5 extra turns.

Instants

• Opt is just a simple cantrip that lets us filter the top card of our deck and put it to the bottom if we don't want to draw it. Then we draw a card. This is an easy way to dig through our deck at instant speed and also triggers Niv-Mizzet, Parun.

• Lightning Bolt, 1 mana for 3 damage, a staple in most Modern red decks.

• Abrade has some nice versatility, being able to hit a creature for 3 or simply destroy an artifact. It's nice to have some optional artifact hate in the mainboard, which can usually catch opponents off-guard.

• Counterspell is finally legal in Modern and we're taking advantage of it. 2 mana to counter anything; helps us maintain control of the board once we have a dragon or two or simply prevents a game-winning play from our opponent.

Artifacts

• Batterskull helps us gain back some of the life we may have lost during the early stages of the game. It also combos very well when equipped to Glorybringer, because it can Exert itself every turn and deal Deathtouch damage to any creature, as well as gaining us 4 life from its effect's damage and another 4 life from its combat damage.

• Ratchet Bomb is just another way to keep the board clear of small permanents in the early game; either that or just deter our opponent from playing them in the first place. Sometimes the threat of a Ratchet Bomb going off is enough to slow down the game to a pace that's more in our favor.

Lands

• Scalding Tarn fetches either of our colors.

• Steam Vents is fetchable via Scalding Tarn and taps for either of our colors.

• Sulfur Falls will come into play untapped in most cases and provides both of our colors.

• Frostboil Snarl can also come into play untapped and tap for either of our colors.

• 5 Mountain and 4 Island round out our lands. We have a decent chunk of Islands because of our Blood Moons in the sideboard.

Sideboard

• Damping Sphere slows down decks that what to cast multiple cheap spells in a single turn. It also stops lands for tapping for insane amounts of mana so it's great against Tron.

• Dragon's Claw should come in against burn decks because that's one of our toughest matchups. Not only does it effectively negate 1 damage from each of their spells, but it gains us life whenever we play a Red spell of our own.

• Blood Moon should be brought in against decks with greedy land bases because it severely neuters their mana and prevents them from casting the spells they want.

• Sweltering Suns helps against go-wide creature decks that want to flood the board. If we find that we don't need it, we always have the option to cycle it away for another card.

• Tormod's Crypt is a good floodgate against graveyard based combo decks like Living End. It can also exile UR decks' graveyards to prevent them from casting Murktide Regent, although we have to do it preemptively.

Top Ranked	Achieved #11 position overall 9 years ago
Date added	9 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	11 - 0 Mythic Rares 24 - 6 Rares 12 - 9 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.97
Tokens	Dragon 5/5 R, Emblem Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Phyrexian Germ 0/0 B, Treasure
Folders	Modern, Looks Fun, Other's Decks, Decks I want, Drags, Good Ideas, Epic/Cheap Modern decks, Cool Deck Ideas, i like, asdf