Shivan Dragon

Creature — Dragon

Flying (This creature can't be blocked except by creatures with flying or reach.)

{R}: This gets +1/+0 until end of turn.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Big Apple Highlander	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Freeform	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Oldschool 93/94	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Pre-release	Legal
PreDH	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Standard	Legal
Standard Brawl	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (49)

Balaam__ on Thoughts about magic the gathering …

9 months ago

Lots of talking points here. I’ll pick the one that resonates most strongly with my own sentiments and leave the rest for others to discuss.

“Card design should be parsimonious, -keep rules to a minimum, while maximizing gameplay depth. In my view, not being a professional designer, but having played this game for 30 odd years, having two abilities should be a rule of thumb. More than that, and it gets tiresome, confusing, and honestly a bit silly.”

^This encapsulates quite nicely one of my biggest complaints with the direction this game has taken over the years (for reference, I’m an OG player like yourself). It’s to the point where I literally dread the next new set and whatever zany, kooky, overly convoluted mechanic it’ll force down our throats. You mentioned the beautiful simplicity of Shivan Dragon’s design language, and I concur 100%. Not every card needs to make a statement for itself; some of my favorite cards from more recent sets have been the mediocre ones that don’t try to wow anyone and just do one simple thing well.

As for abandoning the next Taylor Swift x K-Pop Demon Hunter universes beyond crossover in favor of classic Swords’n’Sorcery public domain fare…while I want that more than anything in the world, I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach the current WotC staff on retinue would George Lucas-ify it and drive it into the ground somehow. The golden age of Arabian Nights era MtG has sadly passed.

Balaam__ on Uren8

1 year ago

@kamarupa “It might be useful to fork this once or twice and explore different aspects in each fork” it’s like you’re peering over my shoulder whenever I build. If I had a nickel for every branched iteration of a given deck I’ve developed, I’d have enough to stick some Alpha Shivans in my bicycle spokes 1950’s style.

Brrrr…

DemonDragonJ on How is the New Voja …

2 years ago

I know that I ask this question very frequently, but WotC continues to print cards that I feel are simply too powerful for their mana costs, and the new Voja, Jaws of the Conclave is among the newest of those cards; for five mana, the new Voja is a 5/5 creature with three keyword abilities (including ward {3}) and a powerful triggered ability, which I feel is simply too much value for such a low mana cost.

If the new Voja did not have ward, did not have its triggered ability, or cost 7 mana, I would have accepted it, but, as he currently is, he provides simply too much value for too low of a cost; I understand that some level of power creep in any game is inevitable, but this is essentially power escalation, in my mind; I can accept both Aurelia, the Law Above outclassing Serra Angel or Scourge of Valkas outclassing Shivan Dragon, because they are subtle improvements over the originals, but Voja, Jaws of the Conclave is simply ridiculous, to me.

What does everyone else say about this? How is Voja, Jaws of the Conclave remotely balanced?

erraticunicorn on A Plane of Knights & Dragons

2 years ago

Do you have any suggestions for a 1:1 dragon swap that would potentially work better?

I was thinking something like Scourge of the Throne would be better over Shivan Dragon and could make some thematic sense :D

DreadKhan on thantis and the boys

3 years ago

I don't think Thantis should leave home without Rite of the Raging Storm, this way everyone has stuff to swing as your opponents, but nobody has extra vs you, but it also should work with Garruk's Uprising. Akroan Horse is another so-so source of bodies that get better with supporting buffs. I am always surprised at how much work War Cadence can do in a meta with lots of attacking, it can even play like a Stax effect if the board is pretty big, because you can turn any swing into an unblockable one at instant speed. Mask of Griselbrand is a pretty impressive equipment in practice, Flying is great evasion, Lifelink is a great ability on a large creature and that much card draw can change a game's outcome very easily.

If you're looking seriously at cards like Assassinate, I feel I should point out that it's a Sorcery and has targeting limitations. If you want to run sorcery speed removal then I strongly recommend Make an Example and Phyrexian Purge, both of those are quite a bit better. I think you could also look at Beast Within and Road / Ruin, both are very useful spells, offering versatility of effect.

Have you drawn Nikya in many games yet? I feel like with only 31 creatures in the 99 that you'll not want to cast him very often, it'll interfere with your other spells.

I'm not sure that Dragon Whelp is a very reliable Commander card, it's not that much less mana than a Shivan Dragon, and it's a much worse card. I would note that most people who play Shivan Dragon in Commander are playing it as a pet card, there are other better cards you could play. I think you could just play something like Avatar of Fury even, it's janky but it's very easy for it to cost 2 mana later game, or maybe Cavalier of Flame if you want something pricier.

Since Thantis can get pretty big, I suspect anything like Return of the Wildspeaker or Rishkar's Expertise would be pretty solid in here.

I'm not sure how much of a target Thantis ends up being, but Angel's Trumpet is a nice back up option that does something similar.

Daveslab2022 on Mortlocke

3 years ago

This will be my last reply in this conversation as you are clearly being disingenuous.

“ RL. Caerwyn's "evidence" were defunct web pages and heresay - which I wasn't really keen on engaging with.”

This is not true. It’s not HEARSAY when it’s coming from one of the head developers of the game. Whether you like it or not, they have access to data that we do not. They know more about their own game and the overall opinion of it than you do. That’s just a fact. So when Mark Rosewater states that he knows the majority of the players dislike the RL, he KNOWS it. He’s not guessing. He’s not making shit up. He knows it 100% for a fact.

Second, Caerwyn also used price evidence against you. He stated multiple different alpha cards that are not on the RL, but still carry heavy price tags. Like the alpha Shivan Dragon which is not on the RL, but has a $12,000 price.

You are wrong. End of story. Your logic and evidence are nonexistent.

Argy on When you feel rusty and …

3 years ago

This is part of the reason why my playgroup switched to only EDH precons, co-op Horde Magic, or Cube.

You get a longer game with the precons, and they don't overwhelm you with the new mechanics.

I get to scratch my building itch by making both the Horde co-op decks, and any decks which StuBi and I play against them (we play with a third friend, HydraBear who often used Planeswalker decks for co-op).

I also get to scratch that itch by building Cubes, which I usually do with any set I have opened lots of cards for.

Tarkir Skies
Eternal Magic

There's nothing to stop you building a Cube with the cards you already own, including Shivan Dragon

All hair the Dragon!

Tsukimi on When you feel rusty and …

3 years ago

I think the problem here is one a LOT of mtg players have been bringing up in the past year or two which is Product Fatigue. WOTC keeps printing set after set, commander decks, secret lairs, universes beyond, universes beyond commanders and 32 other "specialty small releases" a year and the majority of players have been extremely vocal about how bad it is for the game and how unfun it is as a player to try and keep up with all of this. It's so bad there was a Bank of America article warning WOTC about exploiting and burning out its players/buyers. Despite the very vocal and consistent opposition from the community, WOTC keeps doing it.

So yea, you're definitely not alone in this feeling. It has had me missing the old days of commander when the options were so much more limited and you'd see things like Shivan Dragon more often.