Like many long-time Magic players, I've had breaks from the game. One time, early in my most-recent return (now 17 years ago), I played at my local comics shop. I wasn't into Commander yet, and the owner was big into 60-card competitive, even considering grinding for the pro tour at the time. He had me fully invested in trying to figure out how to make Standard work. I evaluated cards based on EV. Those Timmy/Tammy cards - the seven-mana behemoths, the goofy Sorceries - those were for other people.

One time, I was chilling in the shop on a day off, catching some games when a guy from out of town came in. He was a casual player, and he was looking at the case when he asked for help. He bought basically every Dragon the shop had - all the big, goofy ones no one at that store played because they weren't competitive enough. This dude was so excited to play big ol' Dragons.

I'd love to tell you I learned something that day. I should have, but no, it was a much slower process, turning me into the casual player I am now. But that story resonates with me, because that guy's excitement - playing big Dragons, it's just fun, isn't it?

Today's deck is all about that. In particular, we're going to play... Legendary Dragons!

Piru is the quintessential Elder Dragon. She's a 7/7 with Flying and Lifelink for 8 mana in three colors. She requires an Upkeep cost of one of each of her colors () or we have to sacrifice her. She's not wildly competitive (too expensive, not strong enough), but she's got decent stats and puts us in three great colors. And oh yeah... she has one more ability. When she dies, she does seven damage to every nonlegendary Creature.

That's more-or-less a built in Wrath of God for everything nonlegendary on the table, which is surprisingly strong when everyone knows if they kill her, their stuff will die, but also, if they develop too strong a board, we can just not pay the Upkeep cost... and their stuff will die. Puts our opponents in a bit of a pickle.

The obvious thing here, I think, is to do Legendary Kindred. We stuff a bunch of Legendary Creatures in the deck, then we can blow up the board over and over again, keeping all our stuff alive while we keep our opponents free of a board state, and we should be able to just... win. And, frankly, that's exactly what we're going to do - except this is about Tarkir: Dragonstorm, and decks which can accept our new cards. So, we're going to limit ourselves more. We're going to build Legendary Dragon Kindred.

Piru, the Volatile | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Piru, the Volatile

• Creatures (21)
• 1 Ao, the Dawn Sky
• 1 Atsushi, the Blazing Sky
• 1 Bladewing the Risen
• 1 Bladewing, Deathless Tyrant
• 1 Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest
• 1 Dragonlord Kolaghan
• 1 Drakuseth, Maw of Flames
• 1 Erebos, God of the Dead
• 1 Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge
• 1 Ganax, Astral Hunter
• 1 Inferno of the Star Mounts
• 1 Junji, the Midnight Sky
• 1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
• 1 Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury
• 1 Lathliss, Dragon Queen
• 1 Oros, the Avenger
• 1 Ryusei, the Falling Star
• 1 Shadrix Silverquill
• 1 Themberchaud
• 1 Velomachus Lorehold
• 1 Verix Bladewing

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Dihada, Binder of Wills
• 1 Kaya the Inexorable

• Instants (8)
• 1 Anguished Unmaking
• 1 Baleful Mastery
• 1 Crackling Doom
• 1 Despark
• 1 Stinging Study
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Vanish into Eternity
• 1 Vanishing Verse

• Sorceries (7)
• 1 Fearsome Awakening
• 1 Graceful Restoration
• 1 Night's Whisper
• 1 Painful Truths
• 1 Profane Command
• 1 Ruinous Ultimatum
• 1 Sign in Blood

• Enchantments (6)
• 1 Black Market Connections
• 1 Folk Hero
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Rakdos Joins Up
• 1 Repercussion
• 1 Underworld Connections

• Artifacts (15)
• 1 Agility Bobblehead
• 1 Bonder's Ornament
• 1 Carnelian Orb of Dragonkind
• 1 Charisma Bobblehead
• 1 Dragon's Hoard
• 1 Endurance Bobblehead
• 1 Guilded Lotus
• 1 Intelligence Bobblehead
• 1 Patchwork Banner
• 1 Patriar's Seal
• 1 Perception Bobblehead
• 1 Relic of Legends
• 1 Skyclave Relic
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Strength Bobblehead

• Lands (40)
• 5 Mountain
• 4 Plains
• 5 Swamp
• 1 Blazemire Verge
• 1 Bleachbone Verge
• 1 Clifftop Retreat
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Fetid Heath
• 1 Foreboding Ruins
• 1 Furycalm Snarl
• 1 Graven Cairns
• 1 Great Hall of the Citadel
• 1 Isolated Chapel
• 1 Nomad Outpost
• 1 Path of Ancestry
• 1 Rugged Prairie
• 1 Savai Triome
• 1 Shattered Landscape
• 1 Shineshadow Snarl
• 1 Smoldering Marsh
• 1 Sunbillow Verge
• 1 Temple of Malice
• 1 Temple of Silence
• 1 Temple of Triumph
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Vault of the Archangel

Buy This Deck Export text

This should be fun. Let's walk through it.

Mana is key in every game of Magic - we all know this. It's also contentious, and I know not everyone agrees with my assessment that every deck should run 40 Lands. In fact, I have a friend in my playgroup who adjusted all his decks to run 40, then on his first game... flooded out. One game and he's questioning if my math is right. (It is. Sometimes you flood.) And a new card comes out but the deck is tight and you don't want to cut anything... one Land can't make a difference, right?

It does. Statistically, over time, your decks will perform better if you run enough mana, and most of the time, that means 40 Lands. So, we have 40 here, and most of them are helping us with colors - Piru isn't going to cast herself. We do have a Vault of the Archangel as a mana sink, and Great Hall of the Citadel will often be extra mana for us, but mostly, we're fixing our colors.

The real kicker here is we're running 15 pieces of mana acceleration, and most of them are 3-mana rocks. Why? Because 3-mana rocks often tap for any color (which we want pretty badly) and they often do other things. In our case, they draw cards (Bonder's Ornament), help our team (Patchwork Banner), or otherwise help our team (Patriar's Seal). We've got a few which make a lot of mana like Gilded Lotus and Skyclave Relic. Dragon's Hoard should be in any deck running a bunch of Dragons, and Carnelian Orb of Dragonkind can help us with a surprise attack. We've also got the full suite of Bobbleheads here, again because we'll often have a lot of mana and we should have stuff to do with it. Those little guys give us a lot to do.

15 seems like a lot - that puts us in the realm of more than 50% mana sources in this deck. The thing is, we've got an 8-mana Commander. And most turns we're going to give her three of our mana. Then we're probably going to let her die from time to time, and when we do, we'll want to recast her. Plus we're running a ton of other expensive spells. We want all this mana. Trust me on this - the deck works. And when we don't have a spell to cast, we have a whole bunch of ways (like the Bobbleheads) to use much of that mana to our advantage.

Speaking of, we can use some of that mana to draw cards with spells like Painful Truths and Night's Whisper. Generally, I tried for repeatable forms of card draw like Black Market Connections and Phyrexian Arena, but a few spells here and there won't hurt. Don't sleep on Intelligence Bobblehead, even if it's the only one you've got - if it's five mana you weren't going to use anyway, draw a card!

Our winning plan is, most of the time, big ol' Dragons. We've got a bunch of them, and they're all pretty powerful, being Legendary Dragons and all. I found in play-testing I was normally only able to play one per turn and use my mana effectively, but one per turn is enough; these dudes are big. I'm a fan of the Stars and Skys - Kokusho, the Evening Star, Junji, the Midnight Sky, and the like, because they punish our friends for killing our stuff even while we're killing their stuff. However, my list of Legendary Dragons is completely adjustable - feel free to change based on your personal taste, collection, and whatever new gems you open up in Tarkir boosters. This could be a fun deck to have a group of 50 Dragons, shuffle them, then put whatever 20 you happen to deal off the top in, if you like that sort of thing.

We have a few answers, mostly in the form of cards like Anguished Unmaking or Swords to Plowshares - we're going to Exile things. The hope, of course, is we outgun most of our opponents, and we have our one-sided Wrath we can always turn to if someone makes too big a board of Soldiers or whatever (just let Piru die), but it's nice to have an answer for a Blightsteel Colossus with Haste. Then there's Ruinous Ultimatum, which is just mean but too awesome not to include.

We have two Planeswalkers here. Kaya the Inexorable has a fun little +1 we can use to punish people even more for killing our stuff, but really we want to get her to seven and use her Ultimate. Dihada, Binder of Wills, on the other hand, is here purely for her +2; that little bonus is worth it if we can use it once, and pays itself off in two activations. I suppose her Ultimate is a pretty quick way to end the game if everyone lets it happen. If we are having terrible luck with our draws and just need action her -3 is something, but in testing I never used anything but her +2 and never regretted it.

There's also a small reanimator package with cards like Graceful Restoration and Profane Command. It's nice to be able to get Bladewing the Risen back after a Blasphemous Act takes him out or something. (Plus, he brings along a friend!)

Finally, Repercussion is its own little win-con. If we can stick that and let Piru die while everyone has some creatures out, they're going to take a lot of damage, and of course, we take none because every one of our Creatures is Legendary (even Erebos, God of the Dead, who is here purely for card draw purposes). It'll have to go around the table once, but that almost feels more fair, doesn't it? Like, they see it coming, so maybe they should do something about it?

This is a bit more specialized than the previous two shells, but it includes Red which is nice and is a fun and surprisingly powerful deck. It's also a bit of an indictment on the Bracket system, because ostensibly this deck is in Bracket 2 but, while it's too slow for Bracket 4, it's likely to run over most precons out there. On the other hand, it's a nice set up for all the Legendary Dragony goodness we're getting!

Thanks for reading.