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The Hoard of the Dragon Queen

Commander / EDH Combo Creature Cheat Dragons Primer Ramp Theme/Gimmick Treasure

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Land (37)

Creature (18)

Sorcery (12)

Artifact (9)

Commander (1)

Instant (14)

Enchantment (9)

As a life long fan of D&D since back when it was AD&D, when I found out about the D&D Adventures in the Forgotten Realms set I knew I wanted to build a Dungeons & Dragons themed deck. What I've come up with is a flavorful, high-powered casual dragon combo deck that has become one of my favorite decks. And I've kept it updated with all of the great new dragons from the new Baldur's Gate set as well.

The Cult of the Dragon: Timmy, Johnny, & Spike (& Vorthos)!

"Breathe, dragons; you are inheritors ruling the wreck of the First World's destruction." - Elegy for the First World

They say there are three kinds of magic players: Timmy, Johnny, and Spike. I'm definitely all three, and this deck scratches the itch for each type. Big dragons appeals to my Timmy, Power Gamer side. The Johnny, Combo Player in me loves the powerful synergies and explosive combos in the deck. The Spike, Tournament Grinder in me loves the access to all of the powerful support cards and interaction that 5 colors affords.

And then on the aesthetic side, the Vorthos player in me loves all of the rich D&D flavor afforded by playing dragons who have actually been in some of my most memorable D&D sessions, like Old Gnawbone, Klauth, and even Tiamat herself! I'm also playing four of the Saturday Morning D&D Secret Lair cards, since I grew up watching that show in the early 80s, and Tiamat was a big part of it.

All four aspects, Timmy, Johnny, Spike, and Vorthos, to me, create a nearly perfect play experience. These four together are the Wearers of Purple, the High Priests of the Cult of the Dragon.

The Rise of Tiamat!

"Breathe, dragons; sing of her freedom--Tiamat loosed from her prison of torment!" - Elegy for the First World

I'm going to make a controversial statement here: Tiamat is a more powerful Dragon commander than The Ur-Dragon

There, I said it. Here's why: ultimately, Tiamat and the Ur-Dragon are very different decks. The Ur-Dragon wants to reduce the cost of dragons with his immanence ability, whereas Tiamat will tutor up the 5 exact dragons you want. If you want to play a deck that is full of all kinds of dragons that you plan to ramp into and cast, then the Ur-Dragon is the better commander. If you want to build a very interactive, dragon combo deck that is going to cheat in a smaller group of choice dragons, Tiamat is better. And that's what we're doing here. We're only running around 17 or so dragons, and we are very particular about the exact dragons for the task at hand. Our plan is to cheat them in, so we don't need the Ur-Dragon's immanence ability from the command zone, but we still want him in the 99 for the card draw engine that he provides when he's on the battlefield.

In other words, the Ur-Dragon plays as a powerful, traditional dragon tribal deck. Tiamat is a dragon combo deck.

But of course it isn't just a question of power. What better commander for a D&D Dragons deck than Tiamat? That's the main reason I'm playing her.

And while we're on the subject of why Tiamat is the best dragon commander, one final point is worth mentioning. She's the perfect legend in command zone for a "hidden commander" dragon deck. Since she tutors any dragons out of your deck, she consistently gives you access to any dragon legend you want, so you can totally play the deck as a 5-color Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm deck if you want to.

Tyranny of Dragons!

"Naught will be left save shattered thrones, with no rulers but the dead. Dragons shall rule the world entire..." - Chronicle of Years to Come, translated by Wyrmspeaker Severin Silrajin of the Cult of the Dragon

You can play this deck a lot of ways. Since Tiamat tutors for dragons, one natural way to play it is as a dragon combo deck. But since dragons are expensive to cast, the fastest line of play is built around casting them for free. Like the cEDH version of the deck, we're running Dream Halls so that we can cast Tiamat for free to search up more dragons for free. We've also got Defense of the Heart which we can use to get Jodah, Archmage Eternal + Morophon, the Boundless (though Tooth and Nail works to find them as well). This also makes all of your dragons free to cast. From there you can cast Tiamat for free from the command zone and tutor up one of the dragon combos, which you can also play for free. If you are using Dream Halls, the you can get Dragonlord Dromoka to stop your opponents from using your Dream Halls and to prevent them from interacting with you while you're doing your thing.

From here you've got options.

There's an infinite damage combo: Bladewing the Risen + Moritte of the Frost + Scourge of Valkas . Or Ancient Gold Dragon + Scourge of Valkas is another, non-infinite option. Dragon Tempest works in place of Scourge of Valkas as well in both cases, with the upside of granting haste. If all you have are those two dragons and you roll a 20 you're looking at 420 damage to divvy up from Ancient Gold Dragon + Dragon Tempest . If you roll a 5 its still 30 damage, so your odds are really good here.

Or you can get the dragons that make lots of treasure like Ancient Copper Dragon, Old Gnawbone, and Goldspan Dragon. We can win with treasure if we get Hellkite Tyrant or have Revel in Riches. If you also get The Ur-Dragon then it is very possible from here to immediately draw into Torment of Hailfire, which, with all of that treasure, should allow us to finish off anyone we haven't killed this turn and win on the spot. Lots of treasure generation serves as ramp to cast our dragons, but it also lends itself to alternate wincons.

If we are struggling to find Defense of the Heart or Dream Halls, then we've a contingency plan: Generally the contingency plan is to ramp into Tiamat, tutor up dragons that make a lot of mana like Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient, Ancient Copper Dragon, Goldspan Dragon, and Old Gnawbone. Next turn cast Klauth, attacking for 11 between him and Tiamat to make 11 mana to use to play out the rest of the dragons in your hand.

If you're playing fair, ramping into dragons instead of cheating them in, then you may want to get Moritte of the Frost so you can copy Tiamat to reload once your ramp dragons are out. Dragonlord Kolagahn will make your dragons hasty. Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm will double all of your dragons, and Lathliss, Dragon Queen will give you extra dragon tokens, and The Ur-Dragon will make sure you keep a full grip of cards to protect your dragon army and take care of any problems that your opponents present.

Cheap-to-free counterspells and protection like Heroic Intervention are a must. Everyone left alive is going to be desperate to wipe the board ASAP as soon as we summon our draconic horde! Heroic Intervention type effects are generally preferable to counters, since they will turn our opponents board wipes to our advantage.

Choose Your Own Adventure!

This is a high-powered casual deck for high-powered casual pods. It isn't a cEDH deck, even though it runs the Tiamat Dream Halls combo package. There are lots of inefficient, pet cards in this list. The main goal here is to have fun and make big plays with dragons. Winning is not the most important thing. There are quite a few cards that are in here because of theme, so if you wanted to make it stronger and more efficient you certainly could. But I tend to actually tone it down when I'm playing this and avoid the combo lines unless its a very high-powered pod. And so sometimes (often) using Defense of the Heart or Dream Halls to go straight for the win doesn't feel like the most fun play. Usually getting something like The Ur-Dragon and Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund out is still extremely powerful but will let the game continue for a few more turns and I'll go for that line instead. Tiamat is powerful enough to play with her prey a bit before killing them. In short, this means the deck is somewhat scalable to the power level of the pod you're playing in.

Join me, dragon cultists! Let us amass a vast hoard of treasure for the Dragon Goddess of Greed! Let us summon The Avaricious One and her terrible cohort from her prison in the Nine Hells! All hail the Great Chromatic Dragon!

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29% Casual

71% Competitive

Revision 59 See all

(8 months ago)

+1 Black Market Connections main
-1 Mystic Remora main
Top Ranked
Date added 1 year
Last updated 8 months
Key combos
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

17 - 0 Mythic Rares

64 - 0 Rares

7 - 0 Uncommons

5 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.67
Tokens Bird 2/2 U, Copy Clone, Dragon 5/5 R, Faerie Dragon 1/1 U, Shapeshifter 3/2 C, Treasure
Folders Uncategorized, Decks that I like, Cool, tiamat, Cool, tri deck, Others, Cool-ass Decks, EDH, Casual Decks, See all 30
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