Since last Friday’s big announcement, word on the Magic: The Gathering streets has been all about Tarkir: Dragonstorm. From the cards revealed so far the set looks fantastic, bringing back a beloved setting with a modern coat of paint. It also, perhaps unsurprisingly given the title, promises a ton of new Dragon support. Based on the current handful of reveals alone, it’s looking extremely likely that a Dragon Typal deck of some kind will be tested upon release. Before that day comes, there’s a great opportunity to stock up on the best Dragons in MTG Standard.
Time and again we’ve seen older, overlooked cards spike massively in value thanks to a new support package or even just a single strong synergy piece. Given the heavy Dragon theme implied in the first wave of reveals, it’s very likely that the good Dragon cards already in Standard could experience spikes such as these. The cards we’ve gathered today are all Standard-legal, but also pull double-duty as excellent inclusions in Dragon Typal Commander decks. If you want to play with Magic’s Winged Wonders in the near future, consider grabbing your copies soon.
5 | Rith, Liberated Primeval
- Mana Value: 2RGW
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Type: Legendary Creature – Dragon
- Stats: 5/5
- Card Text: Flying, Ward 2.
Other Dragons you control have Ward 2.
At the beginning of your end step, if a creature or planeswalker an opponent controlled was dealt excess damage this turn, create a 4/4 red Dragon creature token with flying.
Kicking things off with a true Dragon’s Dragon, Rith, Liberated Primeval is an obvious inclusion in any Dragon deck that can support it. It’s fairly statted as a 5/5 flier for five, and it packs innate protection in Ward Two. Crucially, it also spreads this protection to every other Dragon you control, making board wipes the only real option for dealing with your winged arsenal.
This alone makes Rith fairly juicy, but not quite worthy of five mana in three colors. What pushes the card over the edge is its token generation capabilities. Dealing excess damage to opposing creatures is easier than it sounds when all your creatures are chunky Dragons. This doesn’t have to be combat damage, either, so high-damage burn spells like Scorching Shot can enable it too. Once this ability gets going the Dragons you create can easily snowball into more Dragons, and from there a victory.
All of this is true in Standard, and doubly so in Commander. The color requirements on Rith are trivial in that format, and its potential is even higher. As a powerful mythic in a relevant type, the fact that you can get Rith for around $3 right now is wild. It’s one of the best Dragons, and Dragon support cards, in MTG Standard by a long shot.
4 | Zurgo And Ojutai
- Mana Value: 2URW
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Type: Legendary Creature – Orc Dragon
- Stats: 4/4
- Card Text: Flying, Haste.
Zurgo and Ojutai has Hexproof as long as it entered this turn.
Whenever one or more Dragons you control deal combat damage to a player or battle, look at the top three cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order. You may return one of those Dragons to its owner’s hand.
Zurgo and Ojutai is a fitting preparatory pick for Tarkir: Dragonstorm based on the characters involved alone. It’s also just an excellent Dragon support piece in its own right, opening up a unique, Control-esque playstyle that’s very unusual for Dragon Typal decks.
As a 4/4 hasty flier with temporary Hexproof, Zurgo and Ojutai pretty much guarantees you a hit on entry. From there, things get interesting. First of all, you get a free almost-Impulse, which lets you sculpt your hand to your current needs. We’ve already seen the Behold mechanic spoiled for Tarkir: Dragonstorm, which cares about Dragons in hand, so this ability should prove extremely relevant alongside that.
Zurgo and Ojutai also lets you bounce a Dragon upon dealing damage, which has a number of applications. You can use this to protect the card itself, storing it safely in your hand where it can dash out again next turn in a drawn-out Control game. Alternatively, you can bounce a low-cost Dragon or one with a powerful enters ability you want to reuse. This ability works very nicely with Behold, too. This is a very powerful mythic for Dragon decks, and it’s a steal at its current $1.50 price tag.
3 | Rivaz Of The Claw
- Mana Value: 1BR
- Rarity: Rare
- Type: Legendary Creature – Viashino Warlock
- Stats: 3/3
- Card Text: Menace.
Tap: Add two mana in any combination of colors. Spend this mana only to cast Dragon creature spells.
Once during each of your turns, you may cast a Dragon creature spell from your graveyard.
Whenever you cast a Dragon creature spell from your graveyard, it gains “When this creature dies, exile it.”
Rivaz of the Claw is the only card on this list that isn’t a Dragon itself in some way. That, however, doesn’t stop it from being one of the best cards to play with your Dragons in MTG Standard. For three mana you get a souped-up mana dork that ramps you by two and fixes perfectly, provided you’re casting Dragons of course. This addresses one of the major problems with Dragons as a type: their mana-hungry nature. With Rivaz on the board, those five mana, three-color Dragons we’ve looked at so far are trivial to cast.
As if that wasn’t enough, Rivaz also adds a ton of resilience to Dragon decks by letting you cast your fallen Dragons from the graveyard. This is a separate ability from the mana generation, so you can get started with this as soon as Rivaz comes down. The two abilities, naturally, also play very nicely together.
Rivaz is about as good a support card as you can get for a Dragon deck. It comes down early and powers out your key creatures then serves as a value engine later on when things get grindy. It’s hard to imagine a dedicated Dragon deck not running at least a couple of copies of this card, so getting in now while it’s just $1.50 seems like a smart move. If you don’t mind the stained-glass Showcase style, you can even snag copies for as low as $0.30!
2 | Dragonhawk, Fate’s Tempest
- Mana Value: 3RR
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Type: Legendary Creature – Bird Dragon
- Stats: 5/5
- Card Text: Flying.
Whenever Dragonhawk enters or attacks, exile the top X cards of your library, where X is the number of creatures you control with power 4 or greater. You may play those cards until your next end step. At the beginning of your next end step, Dragonhawk deals 2 damage to each opponent for each of those cards that are still exiled.
The other Dragons on this list are all great in specific situations, but Dragonhawk here is fantastic in a vacuum. It Impulse-draws you cards both on entry and attack, then burns your opponent for each that you don’t cast. These abilities are universally useful; there aren’t many times you’ll turn down card draw or direct damage, after all.
On top of that, Dragonhawk is a sneaky Dragon Typal support piece too. Its ability cares about ‘creatures with power 4 or greater,’ a category which most Dragons conveniently fall under. With a few Dragons in play this card will be drawing you three or more cards a turn, or burning your opponent for six. In either case, it helps advance your game plan.
Dragonhawk is a little pricier than the cards we’ve looked at so far, coming in at around $3.50 a copy on the low end. That said, the extra cost is well worth it. It’s a great value piece in a Dragon deck, able to keep the cards flowing later on. The fact that it only requires red mana to cast is a huge plus as well; we may be getting some strong color-fixing in Dragonstorm, but it’s always safer to keep things simple in this regard.
1 | Invasion Of Tarkir//Defiant Thundermaw
- Invasion of Tarkir
- Mana Value: 1R
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Type: Battle – Siege
- Defense: 5
- Card Text: (As a Siege enters, choose an opponent to protect it. You and others can attack it. When it’s defeated, exile it, then cast it transformed.)
When this Siege enters, reveal any number of Dragon cards from your hand. When you do, this Siege deals X plus 2 damage to any other target, where X is the number of cards revealed this way. (X can be 0.)- Defiant Thundermaw
- Type: Creature – Dragon
- Stats: 4/4
- Card Text: Flying, Trample.
Whenever a Dragon you control attacks, it deals 2 damage to any target.
Last, but certainly not least, we have Invasion of Tarkir. Among the best cards to supplement your Dragons in MTG Standard, this one stands head and shoulders above the rest. It addresses a core problem that Dragon Typal decks often have, while still meshing perfectly with their overall playstyle.
First of all, this is just an efficient two mana burn spell. As long as you can reveal at least one Dragon, this is a sorcery-speed Lightning Strike at worst. In a dedicated Dragon deck, it should be easy enough to reveal two or more, thus pushing this into ‘powerful’ territory. As we’ve already discussed Behold is a mechanic that cares about Dragons in hand, so there’s some nice overlap to be enjoyed here. Dragon decks often suffer from being too top-heavy and lacking early interaction. This addresses that problem beautifully.
If you manage to flip Invasion of Tarkir, which is trivial when your deck is rich with big fliers, it becomes an absolute monster of a creature. Getting a free Shock every time one of your Dragons, itself included, attacks is a huge deal. This can clear the board or just burn your opponent out of the game, whichever’s more convenient.
By the looks of things, Invasion of Tarkir is already on the move price-wise, with copies climbing from around $3.50 to $5 over the last month. A serious Dragon Typal deck will likely run a few of these at least, so grabbing a playset now will likely be a savvy move in hindsight.