Careful readers of my column know my very first EDH deck was Sheoldred, Whispering One Mono-Black Control. It's one of the very few decks I've ever taken apart, because it was so, so very oppressive. Back then, everyone played Creatures, and this deck just didn't let you have them. Plus, it had some incredible reanimation targets (I got to play one game where Griselbrand was legal - it was amazing).

What I don't often say is truly, my first deck was born out of my Standard Vampires deck during Zendikar block. I played a casual draft and opened Anowan, the Ruin Sage. I already had many of the pieces from my Standard deck (which had a strong start and got killed in the meta), so really, I started out in Vampire Kindred.

One time I was chilling at my LGS when I had an unfortunate run-in with another customer. I was looking at my deck with the owner, a friend, to see what we could do to make it more fun, and this guy wanders over and looks at my deck. Without warning (I didn't know him) he goes, "why aren't you playing Zombies?" I said, "I dunno, I like Vampires." He says, "Zombies are better." Then walked away. The owner legit apologized to me, even though it wasn't his fault.

A couple of things can be learned from this:

1. Let people do what they want, especially in Commander. Zombies aren't "better". They might win more games, but that wasn't necessarily my point, you know? We can play how we'd like, and we don't have to match anyone's expectations - and we should provide the same courtesy to others.
2. Don't let anyone tell you not to build what you want. Mono-White Goblins? midrange based on Game of Thrones? Five-Color Weenies? Get down with your bad self.

In that spirit, I thought we'd build a final Dragon shell, all ready to accept some new cards from Tarkir: Dragonstorm. This one is a little different, though. It'll still win by attacking with Dragons, but it's not going to throw them at your opponents like a Tornado. This deck is going to go a bit slower, taking its time.

Dragon Control | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Ojutai, Soul of Winter

• Creatures (24)
• 1 Ancient Gold Dragon
• 1 Ancient Silver Dragon
• 1 Brave the Sands
• 1 Citadel Siege
• 1 Crystal Dragon // Rob the Hoard
• 1 Dragon Turtle
• 1 Dragonlord Ojutai
• 1 Guardian Scalelord
• 1 Hylda of the Icy Crown
• 1 Icefall Regent
• 1 Icingdeath, Frost Tyrant
• 1 Iymrith, Desert Doom
• 1 Juvenile Mist Dragon
• 1 Pristine Skywise
• 1 Sapphire Dragon // Psionic Pulse
• 1 Scalelord Reckoner
• 1 Sunscorch Regent
• 1 Timeless Dragon
• 1 Verity Circle
• 1 Wardscale Dragon
• 1 Watcher of the Spheres
• 1 White Dragon
• 1 Yosei, the Morning Star
• 1 Young Blue Dragon // Sand Augury

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 1 Dovin, Architect of Law
• 1 Elminster
• 1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

• Instants (10)
• 1 Blustersquall
• 1 Dovin's Veto
• 1 Draconic Lore
• 1 Hithlain Knots
• 1 Icy Blast
• 1 Negate
• 1 Ojutai's Breath
• 1 Ojutai's Command
• 1 Stroke of Midnight
• 1 Swords to Plowshares

• Sorceries (9)
• 1 Borrowing 100,000 Arrows
• 1 Cone of Cold
• 1 Don't Move
• 1 Sleep
• 1 Split Up
• 1 Supreme Verdict
• 1 Theft of Dreams
• 1 Time Wipe
• 1 Winged Words

• Artifacts (13)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Azorius Signet
• 1 Bandit's Haul
• 1 Bident of Thassa
• 1 Bonder's Ornament
• 1 Decanter of Endless Water
• 1 Dragon's Hoard
• 1 Hylda's Crown of Winter
• 1 Kefnet's Monument
• 1 Lapis Orb of Dragonkind
• 1 Ojutai Monument
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Thought Vessel

• Lands (40)
• 7 Island
• 6 Plains
• 1 Arcane Lighthouse
• 1 Castle Vantress
• 1 Cave of the Frost Dragon
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Crucible of the Spirit Dragon
• 1 Deserted Beach
• 1 Detection Tower
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Floodfarm Verge
• 1 Glacial Floodplain
• 1 Glacial Fortress
• 1 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
• 1 Idyllic Beachfront
• 1 Irrigated Farmland
• 1 Mystic Gate
• 1 Path of Ancestry
• 1 Port Town
• 1 Prairie Stream
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Scavenger Grounds
• 1 Secluded Courtyard
• 1 Sejiri Refuge
• 1 Skyline Cascade
• 1 Temple of Enlightenment
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Tranquil Cove

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This will definitely play differently than your Dragon decks with Red in them. But this is a good spot for another lesson: a "weakness" isn't necessarily a weakness. Ojutai basically turns our Dragons into Frost Lynxes - not exactly, because it happens on Attack, not Enters, but still. Locking down a single Creature for a turn in Commander is kind of the equivalent of throwing a pebble into the ocean, right? Not going to make much difference.

Oh really?

Sure, sometimes a card is "strictly better," like a Instant that says "Draw two cards" is better than a same-costed Sorcery with the same text. But if you can find a way to make the Sorcery aspect work for you, maybe the Instant isn't better, right? In this case, sure, we're just tapping down our opponents' stuff rather than killing or Exiling it, but if we can make that work to our advantage, it stops being a weakness and starts being a benefit.

One thing about building a whole series of Dragon decks is you realize how expensive they are. That means mana, so we have our 40 Lands, keeping us in line to hopefully hit five by turn five. In addition, we want to get Ojutai out as soon as possible, so that means rocks - 10 of them. Sol Ring is, of course, amazing, but Lapis Orb of Dragonkind and Dragon's Hoard are both fantastic. Decanter of Endless Water and Thought Vessel are important, too, because this deck is likely to draw a good number of cards. I like Bandit's Haul here, because every time a Dragon attacks we commit a crime, which means we should be able to build up Loot Counters pretty quickly. And Bonder's Ornament is a solid choice in most decks that want three-mana rocks.

We've already seen some of our ways to draw cards, but that's not it. Hylda's Crown of Winter helps us tap things down, but additionally can be sacrificed to draw some more. Bident of Thassa should help us too; there's an argument to go hard on that ability, but there are enough cards which draw based on tapped Creatures I don't think we need it, and the Bident does double-duty by forcing our opponents to tap their own stuff. If Ancient Silver Dragon gets a single hit off, of course, we should be just fine unless we get really unlucky, and Borrowing 100,000 Arrows works like Theft of Dreams while Winged Words is, for us, a draw-two-for-two, which is a great deal. We shouldn't have too much trouble keeping cards in our Hand.

Our deck has 22 Creatures in it, and all but two are Dragons. That's actually a low number; we could cram in more, but this deck feels more controlling, so we're going to win slowly, strategically, getting in attacks where we can rather than flooding the sky. Keep your opponents off their stuff. Meanwhile we bury them in stifled attacks and card advantage. Eventually, we'll have enough big fliers and they won't have any blockers, and we'll just win the game.

We can tap a lot of Creatures. We have Dragons that do it, spells that do it, and other stuff that does it in various ways. Keeping their stuff tapped down does a nice job of protecting us as well as letting our threats through, so that's our primary form of control - sort of a permission-light approach. We do have Stroke of Midnight and Swords to Plowshares to keep things honest, plus a couple of counters and a few board-wipes, many of which we can leverage to our benefit by tapping all their stuff and just killing the tapped things.

Our two non-Dragon Creatures are worth specific mention. Hylda of the Icy Crown likes it when we tap their stuff. Most often, we're going to want to draw with her ability, but that +1/+1 on all our stuff isn't bad. Watcher of the Spheres is here just to help us power out more Dragons when needed and leave up mana to solve additional problems.

In the Planeswalker sphere, Dovin, Architect of Law and Tamiyo, the Moon Sage both tap down Creatures, a thing we want to do anyway. Tamiyo can draw equal to the number of tapped Creatures too, and of course her ultimate is absurd. Dovin probably draws more than he taps, and the ultimate is less powerful (though, if we pull it off and time it right, it should mean death for that opponent). Elminster is a little different. He draws us a card, sure, but that Scry is particularly cool, because we can time it so we Exile something huge on our next turn with his -3 and make a boat-load of little tiny Dragonettes, all ready to tap down a whole team. I love him here.

If I were going to slot this deck into a style, I'd call it midrange-control. It's not fast enough to be aggro-control, but it's not just looking to attack with Creatures. It's looking to control the board, stay on top of threats and accurately assess them, then manage them with unending resources. If you're a control player looking to find a place for a bunch of Dragons, this is a great place to start, but even better, if you're a Dragon player looking to try a different approach, this will do quite nicely. I'd play this in Brackets 2 or 3; a highly-tuned Bracket 4 will probably beat it without serious luck for us, and Bracket 1 will take one look at the first Dragon and roll over in fright.

You can save a chunk of money on this one by leaving out the two Ancient Dragons and Scalelord Reckoner - in addition to saving you close to half the price of the deck, you'll have three slots for Dragons from Tarkir. The mana is also probably more than it needs to be - this deck could handle 10 more Basics (split them evenly) and run just fine. The key is keeping in the card draw - don't cut that.

Thanks for reading.