Oil Study of Cotopaxi by Frederic Edwin Church (1861). Stormbreath Dragon by Slawomir Maniak.

At long last, it's time to take a dive into building O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami. Today's build is actually less about that venerable Dragon Spirit and more about the fact that we now have a full 10 mono-colored legendary Dragon Spirits that have death triggers. While going through spoilers, I couldn't help but wonder if a Dragon Spirit tribal deck with a death trigger focus would be a fun deck to build and play. My gut told me it would be a neat experiment and I've been waiting for weeks for all five of the new Dragons to be spoiled so I could get to work.

Before we dive into our Dragons, let's take a quick look at the commander for this deck. I had to go with a 5/c legendary and chose to build around O-Kagachi because it's on theme for a Kamigawa Dragons deck, offers incentive for our opponents to not attack me, and gives me access to all those dragons. If an opponent deigns to attack me, I can swing back and possibly exile their favorite permanent. That's not an idle threat. I will totally do that. I expect to be attacked in games of Commander, but there's nothing wrong with discouraging it as much as I can. I'm not building a pillow-fort deck, but "OK" should help a little with keeping random attackers at bay.

It's worth asking why I didn't decide to build this deck around the new legendary Dragon Spirit Kyodia, Soul of Kamigawa. That 3/3 legendary can give another target permanent I control indestructible for as long as I control Kyodai. It also has firebreathing, getting +5/+5 until end of turn for each activation. This deck cares about death triggers, so making another permanent I control indestructible feels a little off theme.

If you don't have a copy of O-Kagachi and you want to go with Kyodai, it's a fine choice and will come down a few turns earlier. You might even get the chance to hit someone for 8 or even 13 commander damage in the late game, but today's build is going to use O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami.

Legendary Dragon Spirits

In Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty we're getting five new legendary Dragon Spirits with spicy modular death triggers. If that sounds familiar it's because the old Kamigawa block saw 5 powerful legendary Dragon Spirit creatures added to the game that also had death triggers. One of them, Kokusho, the Evening Star, was even banned in Commander for a few years. Kokusho was unbanned in 2012 but remained banned from the command zone until 2015 when the Commander Rules Committee decided to no longer maintain a separate "banned as commander" list.

Those old-school Dragon Spirit commanders and their death triggers are worth a closer look.

Spanning all five colors, these powerful Dragon Spirits give you a range of interesting triggers when they die. It's easy to see how Kokusho might have seemed like an oppressive creature to have in the command zone, but by today's standards it seems a bit silly that it was ever banned. Times change. Power levels in Commander creep ever upwards, and it makes me wonder what kind of busted commanders they'll be playing in 10 years that might make today's EDH powerhouses look tame by comparison.

We may not know what the future holds for us and for the format we hold dear, but we do know what the legendary Dragon Spirits in Neon Dynasty look like.

This new cycle each give us two options for what to do when they die. The most powerful, most efficient decks in Commander generally have a specific plan and they know exactly what they are trying to do. Some of the most fun decks in Commander have the ability to play differently every time, providing a wide range of play experiences for its pilot and feeling like a surprise could be around every corner. With 10 legendary Dragon Spirits providing 15 different death triggers, I'm very much hoping that this list will be one of those rare decks that can have a plan but will also provide enough surprises that it will be a ton of fun to play.

Dragon Death Triggers

This deck should be able to swing for the win if I don't find myself drawing into anything more interesting than ramp, interaction and Dragons. This list has a healthy number of Dragons and Dragons can pose a problem for some types of decks. This isn't really an aggro build, and I don't want you to think that is our main objective. This deck really wants to see what kind of Dragons I can pull into and how I can squeeze some extra death triggers out of them without actually losing them for good.

Any deck that has a focus on death triggers is going to want to run Teysa Karlov. We might not be built to take advantage of her ability to give tokens vigilance and lifelink, but getting an extra death trigger is perfect for today's build. If I've got a focus on death triggers, Nim Deathmantle will give me a way to bring a creature back from the graveyard. That recursion costs 4 mana, but if I sacrifice the Dragon to Ashnod's Altar, I'll already be halfway there. My goal isn't necessarily to hit an infinite loop - just to set myself up for a few extra death triggers each turn cycle.

Blade of Selves has become one of my favorite cards in EDH. When you attach it to a creature and attack an opponent with that creature, you create a token copy of that creature attacking each other opponent. You would normally exile those token creatures at the end of combat, but with a legendary creature those token copies would die to the legend rule as a state-based action. That means death triggers!

Both Followed Footsteps and Mirror Mockery are going to take advantage of the same rule. The former is an aura that will have me put a token copy of the enchanted creature onto the battlefield at the beginning of my upkeep. The latter is an aura that will put a token copy of the enchanted creature onto the battlefield when the enchanted creature attacks. For some of our legendary Dragon Spirits, that isn't a big deal, but for some it could be pretty sweet.

These extra death triggers might not seem like much, but if you look at your best-case scenario, it could be huge. Kokusho attacking with Blade of Selves equipped and Teysa Karlov on the battlefield at a five-player table (remember - best case scenario) would see three token copies of Kokusho show up and then die. Those three death triggers would be doubled, so you would have each opponent lose 5 x 6 = 30 life and you would gain 30 x 4 = 120 life. These are tokens, but they still hit the graveyard - they just go poof when they do as they aren't actual cards.

The Obligatory Combo

I hadn't planned on creating a combo deck, but when you build with spicy enough cards it's not hard to accidentally find one anyways. This deck happens to have at least two Nim Deathmantle loops that you could luck or tutor into.

If you can sacrifice Atsushi, the Blazing Sky to Ashnod's Altar you make 2 mana. You can also choose to make 3 treasure tokens with its death trigger. You can pay 4 mana to use Nim Deathmantle to bring Atsushi back and do it again, netting 1 treasure each time if you're using two treasures to pay for Nim Deathmantle. Once you've made infinite mana, you can switch to Atsushi's second ability to "impulse draw" the top 2 cards of your library. You draw until you hit a creature like Kokusho and then use that with Nim Deathmantle to kill the table.

Another way to set up a Nim Deathmantle loop could be with any of my legendary Dragon Spirit creatures if I have Mana Echoes and enough other Dragon Spirits to be able to pay that 4 mana. If I'm sacrificing to Phyrexian Altar I'll need 3 Dragon Spirits to set up a loop and with Ashnod's Altar I'll only need two. If I've got an extra Dragon Spirit, I'll end up gaining mana when I do this combo.

Setting up the Mana Echoes Nim Deathmantle loop but not gaining mana might not seem worthwhile, but I'll be getting as many of those death triggers as I want. With Jugan or Ao that means making my other Dragons arbitrarily large and then swinging for the win. With Keiga I'll just gain control of every targetable creature on the battlefield. With Kura I'll have an arbitrarily large army of green Spirits. With Junji I first strip their hands and then kill the table. These shenanigans can be game winning even if I'm not netting mana.

OK Dragon Spirits

This deck isn't likely to be amazingly fast, but it should have a puncher's chance in a fair game and it might occasionally hit a combo and let you do crazy stuff. The value you'll get from Blade of Selves will feel fantastic in the mid-game but if you're down to a single opponent you might start wondering why you're still running it because it won't do anything. Is this a weak, janky tribal deck? Is it a powerful combo deck? I think it's safe to say that it's an OK Dragon Spirits deck.

OK Dragon Spirits | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami

• Creatures (25)
• 1 Ao, the Dawn Sky
• 1 Atsushi, the Blazing Sky
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Caustic Caterpillar
• 1 Dockside Extortionist
• 1 Dragonlord's Servant
• 1 Dragonspeaker Shaman
• 1 Esper Sentinel
• 1 Feldon of the Third Path
• 1 Goldspan Dragon
• 1 Jugan, the Rising Star
• 1 Junji, the Midnight Sky
• 1 Kairi, the Swirling Sky
• 1 Keiga, the Tide Star
• 1 Kenrith, the Returned King
• 1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
• 1 Krosan Drover
• 1 Old Gnawbone
• 1 Ryusei, the Falling Star
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Teysa Karlov
• 1 Yosei, the Morning Star

• Instants (8)
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Assassin's Trophy
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Return to Nature
• 1 Swan Song
• 1 Swords to Plowshares

• Sorceries (12)
• 1 Blasphemous Act
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Damn
• 1 Demonic Tutor
• 1 Farseek
• 1 Hunter's Prowess
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Reanimate
• 1 Rishkar's Expertise
• 1 Shamanic Revelation
• 1 Vanquish the Horde

• Enchantments (4)
• 1 Followed Footsteps
• 1 Mana Echoes
• 1 Mirror Mockery
• 1 Rhystic Study

• Artifacts (10)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Blade of Selves
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Chromatic Orrery
• 1 Dragon Arch
• 1 Mana Crypt
• 1 Nim Deathmantle
• 1 Phyrexian Altar
• 1 Sol Ring

• Lands (40)
• 3 Forest
• 3 Island
• 3 Mountain
• 3 Plains
• 3 Swamp
• 1 Bountiful Promenade
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Cavern of Souls
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Deathcap Glade
• 1 Deserted Beach
• 1 Dreamroot Cascade
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Haunted Ridge
• 1 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
• 1 Luxury Suite
• 1 Morphic Pool
• 1 Overgrown Farmland
• 1 Rejuvenating Springs
• 1 Rockfall Vale
• 1 Sea of Clouds
• 1 Shattered Sanctum
• 1 Shipwreck Marsh
• 1 Spectator Seating
• 1 Spire Garden
• 1 Stormcarved Coast
• 1 Sundown Pass
• 1 Training Center
• 1 Undergrowth Stadium
• 1 Vault of Champions

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This draft spreads its colors out pretty well, with a slight bias towards Green. I chose to run 40 lands because Dragons are expensive, but I could easily see cutting a few and seeing the deck still run smoothly. Dropping out a land and throwing in another sacrifice outlet or two would make sense. I'm not sure there would be much point in trying to tune this deck up for fringe cEDH play. Tuning it down and making it less expensive wouldn't be too hard - just drop Mana Crypt, Cavern of Souls, Dockside Extortionist and you'll have chopped a decent amount off the cost of the deck. Adding in a budget mana base would get you the rest of the way there, but you will be dropping your power level and deck speed a bit when you make all those cuts.

Final Thoughts

Today's deck balances out a raft of staples with a heavy emphasis on legendary Dragon Spirits with death triggers and enough cute tricks to make for what should be a fun list with a lot of replayability. I could see adding tutors and focusing more on that delightful Nim Deathmantle combo, but I could also see playing a more casual game and dropping out the combos entirely. I mean - I'd never do that, but I can imagine someone doing it - either out of consideration for a playgroup that doesn't like combo or because they really want to be able to play at low powered tables.

I do not think this is a high-powered deck, but I do think it would be a lot of fun. I'm planning on buying at least one box of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, and if I crack open a full set of these legendary Dragon Spirits I may have to put the deck together in paper and give it a whirl. I'm about to assemble my Morophon old school combat trigger Dragons deck but I don't really expect that list to stay together for very long. OK Dragon Spirits might be what I pivot that deck to after I've gotten my fill of Morophon Dragons.

As always, if there is a new Legendary creature you'd like to see me dive into, please leave a comment. Each of us here at CSI has our own style and our own strengths and weaknesses and I'd bet even money that any of us would be delighted to get a request for what to cover in our next decklist or for our next column. Ask and ye shall receive.

That's all I've got for now. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!