Commander: The Ur-Dragon

Because who doesn't love dragons? Especially The Ur-Dragon? We will start with the stock list given to us a few years ago-because I'm just getting around to this deck now.

Instant	Artifacts 1 Fist of Suns 1 Herald's Horn 1 Mirror of the Forebears 1 Armillary Sphere 1 Commander's Sphere 1 Darksteel Ingot 1 Dreamstone Hedron 1 Lightning Greaves 1 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Sol Ring 1 Wayfarer's Bauble
Enchantment 1 Kindred Discovery 1 Monastery Siege 1 Palace Siege 1 Crucible of Fire 1 Dragon Tempest 1 Frontier Siege 1 Curse of Verbosity 1 Curse of Opulence 1 Curse of Bounty 1 Elemental Bond	Sorcery 1 Fortunate Few 1 Fractured Identity 1 Crux of Fate 1 Painful Truths 1 Earthquake 1 Cultivate 1 Farseek 1 Kodama's Reach 1 Rain of Thorns
Lands 1 Crucible of the Spirit Dragon 1 Haven of the Spirit Dragon 6 Mountain 3 Swamp 3 Forest 3 Plains 3 Island 1 Path of Ancestry 1 Arcane Sanctum 1 Command Tower 1 Crumbling Necropolis 1 Frontier Bivouac 1 Jungle Shrine 1 Mystic Monastery 1 Nomad Outpost 1 Opulent Palace 1 Sandsteppe Citadel 1 Savage Lands 1 Seaside Citadel 1 Vivid Crag 1 Vivid Creek 1 Vivid Grove 1 Vivid Marsh 1 Vivid Meadow	Creatures 1 O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami 1 Ramos, Dragon Engine 1 Scalelord Reckoner 1 Boneyard Scourge 1 Territorial Hellkite 1 Taigam, Ojutai Master 1 Wasitora, Nekoru Queen 1 Ryusei, the Falling Star 1 Scourge of Valkas 1 Utvara Hellkite 1 Sunscorch Regent 1 Deathbringer Regent 1 Hellkite Charger 1 Tyrant's Familiar 1 Atarka, World Render 1 Bladewing the Risen 1 Broodmate Dragon 1 Crosis, the Purger 1 Dromoka, the Eternal 1 Intet, the Dreamer 1 Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury 1 Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius 1 Ojutai, Soul of Winter 1 Scion of the Ur-Dragon 1 Silumgar, the Drifting Death 1 Spellbound Dragon 1 Teneb, the Harvester 1 Steel Hellkite 1 Orator of Ojutai 1 Dragonlord's Servant 1 Dragonspeaker Shaman 1 Savage Ventmaw

The first thing I notice is that there are no instants here. Which makes a little sense: this is a brute force deck. Do I have a dragon? Good. Should you have a dragon? No. 

However, there's clearly room for improvement from the stock list. Cards like Taigam and Orator of Ojutai are dragon adjacent at best, the curse cycle here is a deceitful thing, there to convince you that there are early plays when they don't do nearly enough, and Crucible of Fire is one of the most 'win more' cards Magic has ever produced. Dreamstone Hedron is...awful. And Mirror of the Forebears is misplaced in a deck that has a bunch of legendary dragons. 

Part of me wants to replace all of these cards, or nearly all, anyway, with instants. Let's give this deck something to do on opponent's turns! But, looking at EDHrec, I can see that there are better ideas, from thematic fixers like Dragon's Hoard, to ways to keep the gas on like Temur Ascendancy, to clever helpers like Sylvia Brightspear.

But that doesn't mean I should ignore the fact that there are no instants: recommendations like Spit Flame, Terminate, or Sarkhan's Triumph have a place and could go a long way towards making this deck better.

I also want to use a Sensei's Divining Top in this deck, so perhaps just raw draw and land search effects would be fine. Let's take this for a ride.

High Fliers

Bringing the Ur-Dragon with updates (mostly! I didn't have a card so Fortunate Few stayed in because removal is always good to have) my opponents were:

Caitlin: Tana, the Bloodsower and Ravos Soultender

Matt: Hazezon Tamar

Lauriel: Mimeoplasm 

I got out to a quick start, with Farseek getting me the mana I needed to put a Deathbringer Regent into play. From there it was easy to scale up with a Temur Ascendancy and a Frontier Siege. These enchantments kept me in cards and kept opponent's stuff off the battlefield. 

It was starting to look like I might run away with things before Matt put a Humility on the battlefield and then the game halted like Ep 5 of Falcon & The Winter Soldier. 

Which is how it was until I got a Dragon Tempest out. A card that works under Humility is pretty good. 

So despite everyone having all the mana and no reasons to play creatures, I was still able to get in chip damage. Even Wrath of God couldn't stop my beats and once I took Matt out and his Humility with him, attacking with Dragons meant that Lauriel could be defeated, and Caitlin in short order after that.

That feels pretty good. 

A week later, I ran this out against Caitlin on the same deck, and Matt running Merieke Ri Berit. 

Dragons did dragon things. I feel like this is very much how Commander should feel: I am casting insanely stupid expensive big critturs and I don't know why anyone isn't doing that. 

Dragon's Hoard has been a rockstar for this deck. Mana fixing and the opportunity to cash in card draws in the later game when resources get tight? Yeah, that's helpful. I think I had my doubts about it initially-a mana rock is rarely something to be excited about. But the Hoard has proven its worth. 

Rest On The Hoard

After review, I think I'm good with this.

 

Instant 1 Sarkhan's Triumph Planeswalkers 1 Sarkhan Unbroken 1 Sarkhan, Fireblood 1 Sarkhan the Masterless	Artifacts 1 Herald's Horn 1 Armillary Sphere 1 Commander's Sphere 1 Darksteel Ingot 1 Lightning Greaves 1 Sol Ring 1 Wayfarer's Bauble 1 Sensei's Divining Top 1 Dragon's Hoard
Enchantment 1 Kindred Discovery 1 Monastery Siege 1 Palace Siege 1 Dragon Tempest 1 Frontier Siege 1 Elemental Bond 1 Temur Ascendancy	Sorcery 1 Fractured Identity 1 Crux of Fate 1 Painful Truths 1 Earthquake 1 Cultivate 1 Farseek 1 Kodama's Reach 1 Rain of Thorns 1 Primevals' Glorious Rebirth
Lands 1 Crucible of the Spirit Dragon 1 Haven of the Spirit Dragon 6 Mountain 3 Swamp 3 Forest 3 Plains 3 Island 1 Path of Ancestry 1 Arcane Sanctum 1 Command Tower 1 Crumbling Necropolis 1 Frontier Bivouac 1 Jungle Shrine 1 Mystic Monastery 1 Nomad Outpost 1 Opulent Palace 1 Sandsteppe Citadel 1 Savage Lands 1 Seaside Citadel 1 Vivid Crag 1 Vivid Creek 1 Vivid Grove 1 Vivid Marsh 1 Vivid Meadow	Creatures 1 O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami 1 Ramos, Dragon Engine 1 Scalelord Reckoner 1 Boneyard Scourge 1 Territorial Hellkite 1 Wasitora, Nekoru Queen 1 Ryusei, the Falling Star 1 Scourge of Valkas 1 Utvara Hellkite 1 Sunscorch Regent 1 Deathbringer Regent 1 Hellkite Charger 1 Tyrant's Familiar 1 Atarka, World Render 1 Bladewing the Risen 1 Broodmate Dragon 1 Crosis, the Purger 1 Dromoka, the Eternal 1 Intet, the Dreamer 1 Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury 1 Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius 1 Ojutai, Soul of Winter 1 Scion of the Ur-Dragon 1 Silumgar, the Drifting Death 1 Spellbound Dragon 1 Teneb, the Harvester 1 Steel Hellkite 1 Dragonlord's Servant 1 Dragonspeaker Shaman 1 Savage Ventmaw 1 Hellkite Courser 1 Balefire Dragon 1 Tiamat

I know, the manabase hasn't been improved. I'm OK with it. If I get to do super cool things in the mid-late game then that's great! If I get blown out in the early game, that happens.

And boy does it happen. Take a look at my board by turn 9 of last night's game.

I kept a hand with two lands and a Commander's Sphere. That's a reasonable keep!

My third land didn't arrive until turn 4, and entered tapped. I lost it to a Silverclad Ferocidons. My fourth land was a Path of Ancestry, which arrived two turns later. I then lost the Path, the Sphere and a Mountain to a second Silverclad Ferocidons. 

Just one of these days, I suppose. I mean, it's funny that I lost everything but a Forest.

However, despite these very poor outings against new people, I don't feel the need to make sweeping changes. When this works, it works and is fine! Everyone's going to have games where things just go wrong and at least I got an amusing moment out of it. 

The Retired: Gigantor

Ah, I so wanted this deck to be a thing!

3 Kilnmouth Dragon

1 Ryusei, the Falling Star

3 Fierce Empath

1 Bladewing the Risen

1 Steel Hellkite

1 Harbinger of the Hunt

1 Destructor Dragon

1 Atarka, World Render

1 Swift Warkite

3 Thunderbreak Regent

1 Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund

1 Thundermaw Hellkite

4 Fertile Ground

3 Naturalize

6 Mountain

3 Jund Panorama

6 Forest

3 Swamp

1 Crucible of the Spirit Dragon

2 Jungle Hollow

2 Bloodfell Caves

1 Grand Coliseum

3 Rampant Growth

3 Painful Truths

3 Crux of Fate

2 Radiant Flames

So, what's wrong here? Well, the big concept was to make a massive Kilnmouth Dragon and that right there is a problem. Because it's a Glory of Cool Things card: you could have a 14 power dragon, right?

Then why aren't you just attacking with it? Why tap it to do 9 damage to something?

Which is a bit of the issue with the entire deck; all these big creatures and they don't just revolutionize the board when they enter. Which, if you're paying six mana for something, ought to do that.  

And that's really the issue here: when this  deck gets to 6+ mana, it doesn't play cards that brick the opponent's board. 

So I'm using all the cool stuff here and putting into the Ur-Dragon deck. It needs to be updated anyway, what with all the cool new Dragonstorm stuff. 

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.

Power "Scale"

I brought out the Ur-Dragon in a four player game at a table with three other strangers. A great way to get a sense of where it's at, right? I said this was about an 8/10, because it really can do awesome things. And I was at a pretty spicy table, with with Eligeth/Halana, Akroma/Sakashima and Uril. 

I played 9 lands, two artifacts that were mana rocks, two spells and died. 

So what happened? Part of it had to do with keeping a hand that didn't have a lot of early action, beyond an Earthquake.

However, going back to the last post, I ended it talking about the manabase-but I was playing this game before I had looked at said manabase. 

In comparison, at the table was a player (one who took the lead in both games I played at that table) with a proxied up manabase, including Tropical Island, Breeding Pool, etc. 

In comparison, 80% of the lands I played entered tapped. 

Now, this isn't a missive on proxies-I have mixed feelings about them but lean on the side of: the necessity to make proxies is a problem of access, and until the false scarcity is reasonably addressed, then go for it. (A small part of me would like to see people innovate with what they have; however, there is little room to innovate in the area of manabases). 

What this is is a reassessment of my deck's power level, based on the mana. If I was running the "all rares manabase" then the Ur-Dragon deck would be pretty out of hand. It would likely be as strong as I say it is. 

I'm not, and I should take that into consideration when I tell people where this deck's power level is at-and I would encourage everyone to do so. Manabases are the engines decks run on and there is quite a range of strength to those engines! 

I overestimated the strength of the deck and it likely lead to my opponents making the normal assumptions. I can't blame them for that, but I am glad that this experience has me looking at the deck in a different light. 

Bad play #1

Commander game, here's the situation:

Me; Szadek, Lord of Secrets vs. Scion of the Ur-Dragon and Korlash, Heir to Blackblade.

The Korlash player has been hit hard: has mana but one card in hand and only Korlash on the board. I know the bottom card on his deck is Horrifying End, so I can mill him out with Tunnel Vision if I can get to that stage of the game.

The Scion player has been having some trouble but, despite having an empty board, has Greater Good and Survival of the Fittest in play. He does some shenanigans and ends up with Keiga, the Tide Star and Hellkite Overlord. So he's rolling now.

In my hand is Vampiric Tutor, Traumatize and something that doesn't matter.

I Vampiric Tutor for Control Magic.

Now, I don't know what Korlash is doing but I've clearly seen the goal of Scion; he wants to dump dragons in his graveyard and recur them making everybody miserable.

My thought process? Steal Keiga, keep him off my back, Traumatize the Scion player, grind him down, win with Tunnel Vision on Korlash.

So I Tutor right past Leyline of the Void. The one card that nixes the whole strategy of the Scion player.

I cast Control Magic, the Keiga is sacrificed to Greater Good and he steals the only other creature on the board, Korlash.

Next turn, I cast Traumatize anyway, blindly following a strategy that I'd laid out, despite my initial plans not working out so well.

Later,later being the next turn, when the Scion player drew and cast Twilight's Call and swung at everyone for lethal damage, we laughed and I shrugged and that was that. I left, a nagging feeling that I'd blown it and not played my best at all, just unsure why.

Until I was driving home and realized; I had a chance to get Leyline of the Void, which means I totally fucked that game up. I lost because I was inflexible and didn't give myself enough time to work out what I needed. I had the tools, I just refused to use them.

One good thing that came from this is that I remembered that Twilight's Call exists, which is just the kind of thing that I want to remember.

Break You

I tested Eraser against strangers in Cockatrice, which felt like a bold move because of how mentally challenging it is for me. It also wasn't quite as productive as I would have liked, with most players quitting after one game. I like to do best of 3, even if there isn't a sideboard, because that starts to show some data. One win or loss just doesn't tell me enough.

Still, I went 1-1 against a UR storm deck, and man, does playing vs Storm decks suck. The game I won, my opponent did nothing for 5 turns until I cast Obliterate and won off Garruk. The game I lost I was a turn away from casting Obliterate and then had to sit through a very long turn where my opponent had an active Pyromancer's Ascension until they dug up their win condition. I went to the bathroom, got a beer and came back, because I had no way to interact with that board.

Fuz piloted a BW tokens deck which I had a rough time with, and Jund, which I was able to post a winning record (3-2) against. That felt good, because Jund is really popular. I still need to work on that matchup but at least it's something I can power through. I need a way to work around Planeswakers though, because they were problematic in the Jund and later in a Naya matchup where I was starting down a fully powered Elspeth, Knight-Errant and Domri Rade along with an Ajani Vengeant. As you might expect, I lost that one.

I am not terribly worried about this: there are cards, especially in green, to help shore up that problem.

I'm much more concerned about the aggro matchup. After the BW tokens deck, Fuz played a souped-up version of his B/W aggro deck and I found myself unable to win that match, pre- and post-sideboard. His deck was not Modern legal but still, it concerns me. Aggro is often a default choice for new players who aren't sure what they want to do and with the potential to see more than 1,200 people at the Grand Prix, I think it's fair to say that there will be a solid selection of aggro decks.

The cards that might be best in giving me a better aggro matchup are probably Kitchen Finks and Murderous Redcap but I just don't know if they will do enough. Redcap is especially problematic because it costs 4 and most aggro decks have you dead by then. I need a way to beat Affinity at least and waiting until turn 4 to do anything isn't going to work. This means sweepers and the best sweepers effect me, too. Losing Birds of Paradise is OK if I can still win but if not, then I've made a big mistake.

PS: I will be traveling this week, so no Thursday post. If I haven't had a chance to keep testing, then I'll talk about Dragon's Maze on Tuesday!