Dragon Blitz

Modern Aggro Burn Competitive Dragons Mono-Red

Hydrax

Creature (15)

• 3x Glorybringer
• 4x Goldspan Dragon
• 3x Leyline Tyrant
• 1x Steel Hellkite
• 4x Thunderbreak Regent

Instant (12)

• 4x Abrade
• 4x Lightning Bolt
• 4x Skred

Planeswalker (6)

• 2x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
• 4x Sarkhan, Fireblood

Artifact (4)

• 1x Batterskull
• 3x Ratchet Bomb

Land (23)

• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 22x Snow-Covered Mountain

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Sideboard

Artifact (9)

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

Sorcery (2)

• 2x Sweltering Suns

Enchantment (4)

• 4x Blood Moon

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Revisiting this deck after nearly 3 years. I quit playing Modern for a while but I feel like I owe it to the people who supported this deck and have it saved in their folders to keep it up-to-date for their sake.

The Primer below and the decklist above are accurate as of August 6, 2021 and I may make further updates depending on how the Modern meta plays out.

Introduction

Back in the day when Humans and Tron were running amok in Modern, this deck easily let me 5-0 my local FNM multiple times.

Is it the best deck in the world? Probably not. Is it one of the most fun and satisfying decks to play? ABSOLUTELY.

This version is very simple: control the board during the first 3-4 turns. Whatever little creatures your opponent plays, get rid of them. You match their 1, 2 and 3-drops with burn spells of your own. When the time comes to start playing 4, 5 and 6 drops, your terrifying, fire-spitting monsters will outclass anything they can play at that stage of the game.

If the dragons can't get the job done, there are alternate win-conditions like Chandra. If our opponent tries to stall, their efforts will be rendered futile as we absolutely will find an answer to whatever is giving us issues.

Combine this with an incredibly versatile sideboard and you have a very straightforward deck which can either steamroll through its opposition or adapt incredibly easily to an unfavorable situation.

Individual Card Choices

Creatures

• Thunderbreak Regent fires a free Lightning Bolt to our opponent's face every time they try to target one of our dragons with a spell or ability. An awesome effect, plus it's a 4/4 with Flying, can't complain.

• Leyline Tyrant is sort of like the Red version of Omnath, Locus of Mana. It allows us to store excess Red mana and save it for later. If it happens to die however, we can spend any amount of Red mana we have and deal that much damage to any target. This Dragon is essentially a nuclear missile storage facility with a DETONATE button aimed at our opponent or any of their stuff.

• Glorybringer provides immediate value when it hits the field thanks to Haste. Not only that, but it can deal 4 damage to a creature if we Exert it, so the option for removal is there as well. It also synergizes well with another card we'll discuss a little later.

• 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.

• Steel Hellkite has some nice utility in its kit. We can pay mana to eliminate our opponent's permanents if we dealt damage to them with the Hellkite. This can be really useful for getting rid of a lot of non-creature stuff our other cards can't deal with. It also combos nicely with Leyline Tyrant, who lets us store excess mana that we can use to activate Steel Hellkite's ability.

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. If we manage to Ult her, the game ends soon after. Think of her as an alternate finisher if our Dragons can't get the job done.

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.

Instants

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

• Skred is our reward for playing Snow-Covered Mountains. This deals with a lot of small creatures in the early game but also scales very well into the late game as we play more of our Mountains.

• 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.

Lands

• 1 Cavern of Souls because we don't want our hard-earned Dragons to get countered by control decks.

• 22 Snow-Covered Mountains because we're mono-red and we're running Skred alongside Blood Moon in the sideboard.

Sideboard

• Blood Moon punishes most decks that aren't playing a lot of basic lands, especially Tron and anything with more than 2 colors.

• Damping Sphere is great against Tron, Storm and anything else that wants to cast multiple spells in a turn.

• Dragon's Claw helps a lot against Burn, effectively making all of their spells deal 1 less damage. Additionally, we'll be gaining life every time we cast a Red spell of our own.

• Sweltering Suns is good against go-wide decks with a lot of small creatures. It also gives us the option to cycle it away if we find that we don't need it.

• 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.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why no Draconic Roar?

• I like Abrade more in that slot. It's more versatile, having mainboard artifact hate is a huge advantage, especially with decks like Hollow One, KCI and Tron running around.

• Roar has the potential to deal 3 direct damage, that's the only advantage it has over Abrade and I just don't feel like that's worth it, considering the huge-ass dragons we're playing at the top end anyway.

Where is Dragon Tempest?

• It does nothing on its own. Casting it on turn 2 instead of something like Ratchet Bomb, Abrade, Lightning Bolt or one of our sideboard artifacts just doesn't feel right. In a deck like this, the early turns are precious. We cannot afford to spend a turn doing nothing. Besides, plenty of our Dragons already have Haste and the targeted burn damage is not worth sacrificing a turn-2 play.

Hardest Matchup?

• Probably heavy control decks.

Thoughts on Slumbering Dragon?

• Too slow

• Clashes with our Ratchet Bomb reasoning

Why no Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx?

• We don't have a lot of early-game red permanents to take advantage of the devotion.

I'm on a budget, what other dragons can I run?

• 4-drops: Verix Bladewing

• 5-drops: Thundermaw Hellkite, Skarrgan Hellkite, Demanding Dragon, Scourge of Valkas

• 6-drops: Lathliss, Dragon Queen, Moonveil Dragon

• Wouldn't recommend anything more expensive than 6 CMC. Modern is a very fast format, and even 6 CMC is pushing it.

Budget Options

I would highly recommend you stick to the original decklist as close as possible because it has been adjusted and curated over several years of testing and gameplay. If, however, you absolutely need to cut down on cost, I'd recommend the following changes:

• Replace Cavern of Souls with another basic Snow-Covered Mountain.

• Replace Terror of the Peaks with another copy of Stormbreath Dragon, Glorybringer, Leyline Tyrant or Thundermaw Hellkite.

• Replace Batterskull with any Dragon of your choice

• This deck doesn't feel good without Sarkhan, Fireblood but if you have to cut him, replace him with 4 Sweltering Suns so you have the option of mass removal or cycling. If you make this change, you can replace the 3 Anger of the Gods in the sideboard with 3 Roast instead.

• Do yourself a favor if you're playing mono-red in Modern, save up the money for a playset of Blood Moon. It will be your best friend in A LOT of matchups. If you can't afford it yet, you can run Molten Rain or Pillage in the meantime.

Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position overall 9 years ago
Date added	9 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	15 - 0 Mythic Rares 11 - 6 Rares 8 - 9 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	3.14
Tokens	Dragon 5/5 R, Emblem Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Phyrexian Germ 0/0 B, Treasure
Folders	to buy later, Modern, read, Midrange Deck I want to build, Decks, Favorites, Red White standard pretty dragons, Other Peoples' Tribes, Tribal, Mutha'Frikkin'Modern..... bitch