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Counterspell, Anguished Unmaking, etc. - I think it goes without saying that dragons have high mana values, which means it's relatively challenging for us to hold up mana for interaction. Counterspell is one of the best forms of interaction in magic, and isn't bad, but I think being able to drop the mana value of a counter spell (or interaction spell) to (Stubborn Denial, An Offer You Can't Refuse) (or one mana (e.g. Swords to Plowshares, Bolt Bend)) makes a big difference. We lose out on the ability to counter creatures with Stubborn Denial, but I am not concerned with that because I view interaction primarily as ways to protect our board state and game plan rather than stopping an opponent's (although it is critical to stop them when necessary) and most forms of interaction are tied to instant and sorcery spells rather than creatures. Furthermore, I primarily want to protect our board state during our turn, especially during our winning turn (e.g. Aggravated Assault + Old Gnawbone) during which noncreature spells will be our primary concern, since opponents are unlikely to cast creatures with flash.
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Atsushi, the Blazing Sky - This dragon is without a doubt excellent in that it's a low CMC beater that provides excellent upsides when it expires. However, I've found it challenging to have this dragon die when I want it to, which effectively turns it into a 3 CMC 4/4 beater for multiple turns. I simply wanted a dragon with an immediate impact that I could reliably trigger.
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Obsidian Charmaw - This is a dragon I would undoubtedly include if I played in a meta where I need to remove problematic lands, but I simply don't play in such a meta at this point in time. I would recommend including this dragon if you do play in such a meta.
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Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
- A 3 CMC 4/4 beater that causes our opponents to each discard a card is good, but I don't think it's good enough unless I wanted to lower my mana curve as much as draconically possible. The opportunity to transform it into a powerful planeswalker is excellent, and I am positive it would have made the difference between victory and defeat in some games, but it's simply something I don't count on being able to pull off. Instead of investing mana into a planeswalker I would have difficulty defending, I would much rather spend that mana drawing more cards or casting more dragons.
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Wrathful Red Dragon - Wrathful Red Dragon is one of those cards that I really want to add, but I simply don't have the room to fit it into the deck list. Furthermore, if I had Wrathful Red Dragon in the deck then I would feel the constant temptation to fit in Blasphemous Act or Chain Reaction which I would definitely struggle with.
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Silumgar, the Drifting Death - Silumgar, the Drifting Death is a card that used to be in this decklist until so many good dragons were printed that I had to start making cuts. Silumgar will earn its spot if you are in a meta with many opponents who like to flood the board. I haven't encountered too many token swarms in my meta that require constant removal, however. Furthermore, I feel that I would need many dragons attacking to truly capitalize on Silumgar's effect, and if I had several dragons attacking then I figured I would already be in a winning position regardless. Additionally, if there are many flying tokens then I usually rely on burn damage through Dragon Tempest or Scourge of Valkas or Terror of the Peaks to finish off that player while focusing my efforts on the remaining opponents.
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Balefire Dragon - Balefire Dragon suffers from the same cons as Silumgar, the Drifting Death in that I really wanted to add it in, but I simply needed to make room for better dragons. I think Balefire Dragon would shine in a token-heavy meta, but I simply don't encounter those many. Furthermore, the fact that Balefire Dragon has such a high CMC and needs to connect for its ability to trigger makes me less excited about it. Again, I would consider this to be more of a meta pick.
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Morophon, the Boundless - I would really enjoy playing Morophon if this decklist ran more cards (e.g. Two-Headed Hellkite, but this list primarily run and dragons with a heavy emphasis on the latter. Outside of summoning The Ur-Dragon (for which Morophon is excellent, Morophon essentially acts as a 6 cmc Dragonspeaker Shaman give or take for almost every dragon we run. I would more strongly consider this card if we ran a Fist of Suns or Jodah, Archmage Eternal combo to win the game, but at that point I think I would prefer to run Tiamat as our commander instead.
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Two-Headed Hellkite - I really enjoy everything this card provides, especially it's flavor text. However, the color intensive mana cost this card makes me hesitant to use it, especially considering that this budget deck runs a budget mana base. I would strongly consider including this dragon if I also ran Morophon, the Boundless, however. Overall, I certainly like Two-Headed Hellkite, but I think we have other cards that synergize just slightly better.
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Scion of the Ur-Dragon - Scion of the Ur-Dragon was a favored card of mine for the longest time, but I ultimately realized that it was a pet card that underperformed. Because we don't take advantage of our graveyard the vast majority of the game, Scion of the Ur-Dragon is in many ways a 5 to 7 mana tutor at minimum. Five mana (of each color too) is a nontrivial mana investment required to set up a heavily restricted tutor. Even when using Scion of the Ur-Dragon's ability optimally, a healthy understanding of the stack can still render Scion of the Ur-Dragon vulnerable to removal. When playing it, I realized that it did too little too late for too much. In comparison, something like Monster Manual is able to cheat in dragons far more effectively and permanently, albeit only from hand.
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Lozhan, Dragons' Legacy - I like Lozhan, because it’s removal on a dragon, and it really works when it works, but I ultimately cut it because it didn’t do anything the turn it came out and was therefore bad tempo. I frequently found that optimal play was to play or set up another more meaningful and proactive dragon instead of Lozhan despite the temptation to extract value out of Lozhan, so it sat in my hand until I ran out of better dragons to play at which point it lost its value. Finally, the fact that Lozhan didn’t synergize well with Majestic Genesis and Sneak Attack, among other noncasted dragons (e.g. Utvara Hellkite, Dragon Broodmother, Monster Manual), was a larger deal than I expected.
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Bladewing the Risen - Bladewing the Risen was a card that was on my list for a long time. When looking for cuts, however, I realized that Bladewing the Risen is irrelevant most of the early game. And more importantly, I never cared about Bladewing the Risen itself; all I cared about was the dragon permanent it brought back. In comparison to other reanimation spells (e.g. Fearsome Awakening, Unburial Rites), Bladewing the Risen essentially becomes a heavily color restricted ( is a bit much) 2 or 3 CMC 4/4 dragon stapled onto a 4 or 5 CMC reanimation effect. There's a pump effect, yes, but I've never used it once. The dragon is fat attached to the effect we really cared about.
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Atarka, World Render - Atarka, World Render is a powerful dragon that I included for many years, but I realized that I was never really happy to draw or play it, unless I already had a big board. The double strike upon attack trigger was also upsetting when summoning Atarka after attacks were declared (e.g. The Ur-Dragon, Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient, Old Gnawbone). Other than double strike, which Atarka doesn't even inherently have, it was just a 6/4 beater. Because double strike was the main benefit of Atarka, I opted to replace it with Sylvia Brightspear, which can provide double strike at all times rather than only after combat. If double strike is the priority and you have the room, then including Atarka, World Render in addition to Sylvia would be ideal.
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Ancient Silver Dragon - Ancient Silver Dragon has the potential to be an all star dragon in any list, but it will simply take too long to be summoned conventionally. By the time you summon Ancient Silver Dragon, assuming you can attack with it, you may not have enough turns left in the game to capitalize on them. Furthermore, having too many cards in hands isn't really a problem in this deck, and being able to discard to hand size can benefit us when attempting a Patriarch's Bidding or Living Death play. On top of that, being able to connect with Ancient Gold Dragon can offer us the opportunity to win the game through Scourge of Valkas triggers whereas Ancient Silver Dragon prolongs it.
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Silumgar, the Drifting Death - This dragon was in my list for the longest time, but I ultimately opted to cut it, because I wasn't able to optimize its ability to clear boards as consistently as I would have liked to. While it could help control boards at times, I usually only managed to attack with one or two dragons, and simply wasn't good enough in most cases. If I did have multiple dragons out, I was usually already winning or I would have rather invested the mana into another dragon (e.g. Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury, The Ur-Dragon, Scourge of Valkas) to capitalize on all the dragon triggers.
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Intet, the Dreamer - I had Intet in my deck originally when I didn't have any better dragons, and what I found was that Intet often just became a big 6/6 beater. I may have used his ability once out of all my games. More often than not, most of our mana is spent during our main phase summoning dragons so we seldom have leftover mana to pay for effects like Intet's, which isn't even guaranteed to trigger. Furthermore, any mana we do have leftover is usually better saved for any instant removal, protection, or counterspells that we may have drawn. Getting Intet's ability to trigger through combat damage is another complication that makes this card not as appealing as our current roster of dragons.
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Crosis, the Purger - Crosis suffers from the same problem as Intet, the Dreamer. Discarding cards with Crosis' ability also feels bad and can draw the ire of the inflicted player.
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Steel Hellkite - I initially thought Steel Hellkite was an auto include in every deck, but I came to realize that this card suffers from the same problems as Intet, the Dreamer in that his ability only gains traction when you have leftover mana, which we seldom have. While I like Steel Hellkite, I seldom got to use his ability except as a way to remove tokens, and that simply wasn't good enough as I gained access to more powerful dragons.
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Wasitora, Nekoru Queen - I wanted Wasitora to work, I really did. I wanted Wasitora to work so much that I created an entire deck revolving around her [3]. However, Wasitora also suffers from the same problem as Intet. Furthermore, giving opponents the choice of what to sacrifice diminishes her value, and she almost never gets to create cute tokens (which, to be clear, is the main reason to play Wasitora), because our opponents almost always have something to sacrifice.
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Boneyard Scourge - I thought Boneyard Scourge was a powerful addition, because it was a low CMC dragon that we could play early which also had the potential to stay relevant in the late game. In practice, however, I seldom drew Boneyard Scourge early enough for it to be useful when it mattered, and I seldom had the leftover mana to make use of its situational abilities in the late game. Whenever I did draw Boneyard Scourge, more often than not in the latter half of the game, I wished I had drawn another more impactful dragon instead.
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Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund - This card seems powerful, and it is especially because haste is so powerful in our deck, but I refuse to play Karrthus for two reason: (1) it is financially expensive and (2) Karrthus makes our deck needlessly susceptible to cloning effects which would hard counter our deck.
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Ryusei, the Falling Star - The only thing Ryusei brings to our deck is his ability to clear the board which sounds good. The problem is that his board clear is conditional, predictable, and at times insufficient. I would gladly remove this card for more consistently powerful board clears or dragons.
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Crucible of Fire - I consider this to be a "win more" card that relies on dragons being on the board when our deck really just needs more ways to get dragons onto the board in the first place. Larger dragons are helpful, yes, but our deck seldom gets the opportunity to go wide in ways that make this card excel. Furthermore, +3/+3 seldom gets our dragons large enough to compete against decks dedicated toward pumping individual creatures very tall.
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Kaalia of the Vast - This card can be very potent, but it's also very vulnerable to removal, and Kaalia is a removal magnet. The high cost, in both cash and CMC, also makes me hesitant to use Kaalia.
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Thunderbreak Regent - I see Thunderbreak Regent in many decklists, but I just don't see how it earns its spot. It has a low CMC, yes, but its effect also seems lackluster to me in a format where health is just a resource that people have in abundance. I would reconsider this exclusion, if I wanted to go all in on lowering the CMC curve of the deck to increase power level, but that would involve losing a lot of the high CMC dragons that are the heart and soul of any The Ur-Dragon.
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Sarkhan Unbroken - Even though Sarkhan, Unbroken's ultimate is potentially game winning, we will never get to reliably use it enough to justify Sarkhan exclusively for his ultimate. Instead, we would use Sarkhan primarily for its +1 and -2 abilities, which are fair for Sarkhan's high cost. Unfortunately, most players tend to look straight at Sarkhan's ultimate and decide to kill it. Sarkhan draws a disproportionate amount of hate/attention towards us and we seldom have a board state powerful enough to protect it.
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Sarkhan, Fireblood - This planeswalker is full of upsides no matter how you look at it. However, it has one major flaw I cannot ignore: it's a planeswalker. I am simply biased against planeswalkers in this deck, because I have personally had bad experiences playing one. Planeswalkers draw a disproportionate amount of hate in playgroups I've sat at, I find it challenging to defend planeswalkers with a relatively small number of dragons on board (at least until we reach a critical mass of dragons), and our dragons are usually tapped out from attacking, and cannot defend regardless. That said this planeswalker is probably our most playable planeswalker aside from perhaps Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner.
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Darigaaz Reincarnated - Darigaaz looks good because of its built-in recursion, but out of all my games I have only been able to take advantage of it twice. And both times Darigaaz came back too late to make a notable difference. Darigaaz is so expensive, and his ability is so delayed, that it comes out too close to the conclusion of the game for its reincarnation to make a meaningful enough impact.
