Ur-Dragon's Multiverse Onslaught | *PRIMER*

Commander / EDH MattN7498

SCORE: 292 | 236 COMMENTS | 88405 VIEWS | IN 207 FOLDERS


DOMINARIA UPDATE/NEW PRIMER SECTION UPDATE —April 27, 2018

Dominaria is here and is so awesome! There's so many new legends to build around and look forward to seeing all of them. This new set managed to bring some new Dragons to try out as well as other legendary synergies so we'll see how they do!

Also will be working on adding a section of for those who have been slain by our lord and savior The Ur-Dragon. So be on the lookout for that in the next couple weeks once I figure out the formatting.

EXCLUSION: I had decided not to include Verix Bladewing in my build. While I do like the art and border, he's not that special. Early game he's essentially a worse Thunderbreak Regent and late game he's a Broodmate Dragon. Both of these weren't really needed at either points in my games so I felt it was unnecessary.

Selvala's Stampede > Knollspine Dragon

  • With the fast mana this deck is capable of as well as the card draw, you have the potential to either flip into or play a lot of creatures from your hand and can sometimes kill someone. Plus voting cards are a lot of fun! Knollspine usually just ended up sitting in my hand unless I was completely which never happened a lot. And when I did have the option to discard, it usually wouldn't be only creatures and I wouldn't be able to recur the artifacts/enchantments I would throw away.

Darigaaz Reincarnated > Ryusei, the Falling Star

  • This is a Jund dragon I've been waiting a long time for. Not only does it have all the important keywords but it is self recurring so as long as it doesn't get exiled, it'll always keep coming back and swinging in! Ryesui's ability has been irrelevant a majority of the time because when the field gets wiped, usually everything dies so he's just a big flyer where Darigaaz is better.

Hellkite Overlord > Dragonlord Kolaghan

  • With adding Darigaaz, why not add another big dumb flyer? This thing can be a monster if your opponents don't have a way to deal with the regenerate ability so we'll see how it ends up performing. Kolaghan unfortunately isn't worth it anymore. We have enough haste outlets and having the second half of the ability not be relevant in Commander it ended up getting cut. Still love the art though.

Ranger's Path > Chromatic Lantern

  • Ever since I got rid of the basic land ramp, the deck has been much slower. But, I completely didn't realize this ramp existed which is really nice with all the dual lands. With the amount of fetches, duals and more mana fixing this deck gets the Chromatic Lantern seemed and has been pretty unnecessary and hasn't really mattered.

Sulfur Falls > Sunpetal Grove

Godless Shrine > Swamp

Sheltered Thicket > Mystic Monastery

Hallowed Fountain > Island

Steam Vents > Mountain

  • General dual replacements and land changes to help with the color pie shift.

Vlasiax says... #1

Great primier! But how about further lowering costs with Birds of Paradise?
Also I disagree with your opinion about Savage Ventmaw because you can use his ability DURING battle like e.g. Scion's ability or Scourge of Valkas buff and rest for enchantments or artifacts
Anyway that's a very good primier to read - I'm trying to build The Ur-Dragon deck myself here: Bow before Draconic King!!!

March 20, 2018 6:16 p.m.

MattN7498 says... #2

Vlasiax I can understand why you think Birds is good. But in my experience playing karrthus before this deck and this version now, having little mana dorks that don't scale usually tend to not be worth and hurt you. Because when it eventually comes down to top decking after you've already ramped out, you want to be ripping big dragons off the top of your library instead of a bunch of little mana creatures. The mana creatures I included scale really well at any point in the game and can make a huge impact where as Birds only gets me ahead on one mana. Sure it's great as a turn 1 play but if you're not playing it on turn one, it just feels like a waste. Plus the dragons don't start coming in til about the 4/5 mana range so going from 1 mana to 3 mana turn two doesn't feel worth it for a slot.

And while I do still think Savage Ventmaw is an excellent dragon, in conjunction with Ur-Dragon's ability which is how I want to be cheating stuff into play seems really bad. Using the effect for a 4/4 flyer that won't do anything til the next turn and has potential of dying when they're already wanting to kill your field seems too risky when I'd rather play a dragon with an ETB. I've actually been playing this a quite about without him and haven't really noticed the need for him. As long as I have some type of ramp card in my opening hand, usually come out of the gates pretty well positioned!

March 21, 2018 12:28 a.m.

Vlasiax says... #3

That's reasonable, thanks for clarifying that to me, however I can't let go to my little Ventmaw :D
Also have you considered any tutors for this deck? Namely Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Enlightened Tutor and Eladamri's Call? I think that it'd boost the consistency of the deck

March 21, 2018 10:10 a.m.

MattN7498 says... #4

Vlasiax At some point in the future, I would upgrade Sarkhan's Triumph to Vampiric Tutor and maybe add Eladamri's Call or Demonic Tutor. But other than that, don't really need any other tutors.

March 21, 2018 4:54 p.m.

Vlasiax says... #5

I also have another question - what are your thoughts about rest of the fetchland cycle (ZEN Fetches) and Lairs, especially: Darigaaz's Caldera and Rith's Grove?
Another way of very efficient ramp could be Exploration and Crucible of Worlds in case someone blows the table with Armageddon or things like that

March 23, 2018 7:43 a.m.

MattN7498 says... #6

Vlasiax If I could include the other fetches I would. However, they're the most expensive ones so adding another $400 for minimal impact on mana base when it's already pretty solid when I could build another deck doesn't seem worth for now. But I would love to at some point in the future.

Played with the Lairs before in other decks. They were too slow and the only tri-lands I really needed were the actual ones. Anymore and you have too many lands entering in tapped.

While I do think utility is important for a deck in terms of land recursion and stuff like that, this deck doesn't have the time to care about it. There is such thing as too much utility. This deck wants to swing out and kill people as quick as possible. So once I get 9 mana for Ur-Dragon, I want to have the resources to amp up the pressure or rebuild instantly if it doesn't work out. And to be honest I don't really care about hitting land drops after I cast Ur-Dragon. That being said, if you spend your early turns setting up for recursion with Crucible and stuff rather than ramping hard or getting the haste and card draw effects out, you lose too much time and resources and sometimes being behind one turn makes or breaks the game with this deck. If you get hit by Armageddon and can't recover from it, oh well it happens. You just know next time to kill them first :)

March 23, 2018 5:58 p.m.

Vlasiax says... #7

Have you considered any artifacts that cheat creatures into battlefield like Belbe's Portal, Dragon Arch, Quicksilver Amulet or Kaalia of the Vast?
Also isn't running only 4 basic lands too dangerous?

April 9, 2018 10:14 a.m.

MattN7498 says... #8

Vlasiax I have been talking with people on which cheater to include. I think we said that Quicksilver was the best of the 3 to include so that will probably go in the deck at some point. And yes running 4 basics is kinda dangerous for Blood Moon. However, there as been countless times where I fetch almost every turn for dual lands and have still not had enough to cast multiple spells later in the game due to the constrictions on my mana. With this deck, you kinda have to be greedy for the manabase and the next rendition includes less basics. Our deck can function of just using a lot of mountains but if we get Blood Mooned, oh well it happens. It's Commander. Just know to kill them first next time to let them know as long they don't keep tutoring and playing Blon, you won't direct everything at them :)

April 23, 2018 9:39 p.m.