But Wait, Tiamat

It's odd, but the card that is underperforming for me is Fist of Suns. One would think that with so many cards with high mana values, Fist of Suns would be perfect for the Ur-Dragon. What I've found though is that I'm usually spending five mana to do whatever I want to do anyway. Or, if I'm spending six mana, the difference isn't enough to matter-spending five mana instead doesn't let me do anything with the sixth.

Enter Tiamat. I've said that I'm not really amped about the Adventures to the Forgotten Realms set but Tiamat is a card that solves a very specific problem for the Ur-Dragon; what to do when your board is wiped out. It also solves that problem by allowing me to tutor for particular dragons that might be critical to mapping a strategy out for the next few turns. 

That's a win-win. 

Even better, in the two games I've gotten under my belt, Tiamat has appeared in both of them. In one, she was a 'win more' card. That happens: when your game plan involves attacking everyone with giant fliers, and nobody does anything about your plan...well, another flyer isn't going to tilt the scales.

In another game however, Tiamat was crucial, allowing me to rebuild after a board wipe and find a handful of problems that my opponents would have to answer. 

As a nice coincidence, Kendra Smith at Coolstuffinc is building a Tiamat deck right now! What interests me, though, is the manabase. There are some cards I've overlooked, like Arcane Signet, which has me rethinking the manabase a little. While I won't go as far as she did, it's certainly possible that reviewing the manabase could be very helpful. 

There are also a few dragons I hadn't considered, like Amareth, the Lustrous. So I'll have another pass at this deck before calling it good, but it's pretty close.