For those of you just joining us, I'm walking through a series of four decks built based on four main characters from the Fourth Wing book series. (In case you're worried, there will be spoilers but very light - like a modern movie trailer).

The main character, Violet, bonds with two dragons. We'll talk about the little one, Andarna, in a couple weeks, but today we're talking about Tairn. (Out of respect for the Empyrean, I'll refrain from using his full name. IYKYK.)

Tairn is well-respected as a battle dragon and is considered a general among other dragons - they do what he says. He's also huge, much larger than most of the bonded dragons in the world. He's about 100 years old, making him middle-aged for a dragon, and has had one bonded rider before Violet who died trying to save Violet's brother from death. He has sworn he will never bond again after Violet. He's also black, which makes him rare and - let's face it - cool.

The problem is, that black scale color is a diversion. I've seen a few mocked-up cards based on Tairn, and they're always like . But while Tairn is black in actual, physical color, he does not align with Black as a color in Magic at all.

Remember, the colors in Magic are not necessarily related to the color of the thing in question. Yes, Chandra has red hair and Jace wears blue robes, but that's because it makes it easier for players to understand. A Soldier might wear brown leather but be White. Or Red. Or any other color. So Tairn's being physically black does not mean he is Black-mana-aligned.

Black is power-hungry, selfish, and willing to sacrifice others for its own gain. Tairn is none of those things! He cares very deeply for those he loves, including Violet, his mate Sgaeyl, and Andarna (Violet's other dragon), whom he and Sgaeyl have kind of adopted. He leans into his color's reputation: Black dragons blend into the darkness of night and use that to surprise their enemies in the air. At one point he ambushes an opponent and comments how he hasn't brought that much honor to his den in a long time. He believes strongly in the long-running traditions of dragonkind, their connection with humans, and the natural order of species.

In conversation with my friend who loaned me the books (and whom I have undoubtedly bored silly with wanting to talk about this), we agreed: Tairn is actually . He believes in structure, respects authority and stability, and cares about those who have less, which is all very White. He also believes people (and dragons!) should live their truth, their own nature, and knows different creatures have different roles to play - some are hunters, some are prey. That is very Green. So, Selesnya - .

We only get two options there, and one of them stood out, given Tairn's desire to make those around him stronger.

Now I just need to get someone to alter a Dromoka for me to look like Tairn.

Let's start with the issues. Tairn is huge. Violet stands about 5'2", and she does not come up to his ankle. I'd call 5/5 not big enough. So, we're going to run some ways to make him bigger in addition to Bolster, which self-targets when there are no other smaller Creatures around.

Because of this size difference and Violet's disability, Tairn also makes some concessions dragons are well-known for not making so she can ride. He bends his leg to make a ramp for her to climb onto his back, and he ultimately allows himself to wear a saddle after using his own magic to hold her in place becomes too tiresome. (It helps that he's so big and terrifying none of the other dragons will make fun of him.)

He defends his rider and those around him, especially his mate.

And he is fearless and fearsome in battle, tearing through opponents with sheer size and power in addition to incredible fighting skills.

Here's what I came up with.

Tairn | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Dromoka, the Eternal

• Creatures (2)
• 1 Dragonback Lancer
• 1 Green Dragon

• Instants (25)
• 1 Ambuscade
• 1 And They Shall Know No Fear
• 1 Assure // Assemble
• 1 Bite Down
• 1 Defend the Rider
• 1 Divine Resilience
• 1 Entrapment Maneuver
• 1 Fight as One
• 1 Flawless Maneuver
• 1 Grand Crescendo
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Hunter's Mark
• 1 Join Shields
• 1 Make a Stand
• 1 Moment of Valor
• 1 Overprotect
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Repel the Vile
• 1 Signature Slam
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Unbreakable Formation
• 1 Windswift Slice
• 1 Wing Puncture
• 1 Withstand Death
• 1 Your Temple Is Under Attack

• Sorceries (16)
• 1 Bring to Trial
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Declaration in Stone
• 1 Deploy to the Front
• 1 Emergent Growth
• 1 Exponential Growth
• 1 Harmonize
• 1 Iona's Judgment
• 1 Martial Coup
• 1 Outmuscle
• 1 Return from the Wilds
• 1 Rishkar's Expertise
• 1 Roar of Challenge
• 1 Scout the Wilderness
• 1 Season of Gathering
• 1 Soul's Majesty

• Enchantments (8)
• 1 Almost Perfect
• 1 Epic Proportions
• 1 Giant Inheritance
• 1 Indrik Umbra
• 1 Rune of Protection: Black
• 1 Rune of Protection: Green
• 1 Rune of Protection: Red
• 1 Rune of Protection: White

• Artifacts (6)
• 1 Dragon's Hoard
• 1 Heaped Harvest
• 1 Jade Orb of Dragonkind
• 1 Lumbering Worldwagon
• 1 Saddle of the Cavalier
• 1 Vulshok Morningstar

• Lands (40)
• 10 Forest
• 8 Plains
• 1 Blossoming Sands
• 1 Bonders' Enclave
• 1 Branchloft Pathway // Boulderloft Pathway
• 1 Canopy Vista
• 1 Cave of the Frost Dragon
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Fortified Village
• 1 Gavony Township
• 1 Horizon Canopy
• 1 Maelstrom of the Spirit Dragon
• 1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
• 1 Overgrown Farmland
• 1 Radiant Grove
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Scattered Groves
• 1 Selesnya Guildgate
• 1 Sunpetal Grove
• 1 Temple of Plenty
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 War Room

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We want to hit Tairn as soon as we can, so 40 Lands gives us a decent shot of hitting our drops for him. Lands mostly help fix our colors, with a couple of pretty standard staples like Reliquary Tower and Rogue's Passage. We also have Cave of the Frost Dragon, which is a nod to Iron Flame when Tairn hunts down a dragon in a cave, and Maelstrom of the Spirit Dragon, which in this deck has exactly one target: Green Dragon. We'll get to that in a moment.

We've also got some ramp. I'd normally go all in on Rampant Growth, but there were some fun ones I didn't want to skip. Lumbering Worldwagon doesn't really have a connection to the novels, but it's pretty solid so we'll call it an infantry vehicle, and it gets us multiple Lands. Plus, it's a great Bolster target which often has a wildly-outsized power to toughness ratio. Dragons eat a lot, so Heaped Harvest seemed like fun, and Dragon's Hoard is both solid and on-theme, even if it will only draw us a couple of cards. Jade Orb of Dragonkind helps make Tairn bigger.

There are only two other Creatures in the deck. The first is that Maelstrom target, Green Dragon. This card, despite being the wrong color (Sgaeyl is blue), fits Sgaeyl's personality well. She is known as being ruthless and cunning in battle. Green Dragon is similarly ruthless. Tairn and Sgaeyl can't be apart for more than about a week, so if you see him, you'll probably see her - so it didn't seem right to build his deck without including her.

The other is Dragonback Lancer, a perfect name for Violet, without whom Tairn doesn't go into battle. Violet reliably has friends around who come to her aid whenever she needs them, which is well-represented with Mobilize (plus with Green Dragon's Poison Breath it makes people think twice about blocking that 1/1 with something huge).

In addition to Bolster, which almost always will target himself at least once or twice, we've got a few spells which make him substantially larger, like Almost Perfect, Epic Proportions, and Giant Inheritance. I like Indrik Umbra here too. Especially if you're trying to honor the spirit of the deck, get one of these on him as soon as possible.

He's also strong and capable, so we get cards like Bite Down and Ambuscade, which let us use Tairn's sheer size and power to destroy our enemy's Creatures. I'm particularly fond of Windswift Slice, and we'll just call the Elf Warriors Infantry. We also have other removal spells which demonstrate just how much he obliterates his opponents, with spells like Path to Exile and Declaration in Stone. Outmuscle is great here, as is Roar of Challenge.

He uses his own magic to protect those he loves, so we have Runes of Protection. We have, however, skipped Blue (Sgaeyl is blue) and Artifacts (Violet has silver hair and he refers to her as "Silver one").

Dragon riders are supported on the ground by the Infantry, so we have a few spells which can drop a number of tokens as both representation of the accompanying army and an alternate win condition. Martial Coup does double-duty as a Wrath effect as well, and Deploy to the Front is great when someone else has created a strong Battlefield. Grand Crescendo is not well named for our purposes, but is exactly what we want from a spell like this.

Vulshok Morningstar acknowledges Tairn's Morningstar tail as well as makes him larger, and Saddle of the Cavalier represents Violet's saddle. I don't hate that it makes him larger too, or more difficult to block.

We need some ways to draw cards, so I went with Soul's Majesty-style effects. We won't normally draw an extra card or two; instead, we'll draw a whole bunch all at once. Plan accordingly.

There are a few particular card names perfect for this deck I'd like to highlight. I've already mentioned a few of them, but we have Defend the Rider and Fight as One. Both do things we want to be doing - I particularly love that Fight as One buffs both Violet and Tairn, suggesting they're stronger together - and both cards have really good names for what dragons and their riders do.

This deck plays well! I'd put it somewhere between Brackets 1 and 2. It's not completely themed, but it definitely is not as strong as it could be if it weren't themed. There are a lot of removal spells and a lot of "save my stuff" spells when honestly, there's not that much to save. But Tairn gets pretty big pretty quickly, so a Commander damage win is certainly possible if not likely.

If I were to adjust this deck to be more powerful at a table, I'd probably start by adding more threats - more Dragons, certainly, and other Creatures which benefit from Bolster. I also want more card draw that's repeatable; perhaps more token generators and Skullclamp, for example. It's your deck. But I plan on building this one as-is, along with the other three, so I can have a little Fourth Wing pod at some point.

Thanks for reading.