The official debut for Magic: The Gathering’s latest set, Tarkir: Dragonstorm, is kicking off later today. Turns out, however, Wizards just couldn’t wait till then, deciding to slip in a sneaky spoiler late last night. If you a big fan of Dragon decks but hate those prohibitively high casting costs, then Dracogenesis may just be the MTG card for you.
This massive enchantment gives us closure on one of Mark Rosewater’s teasers for the set. It also gives us a way to cheat out as many Dragons as we see fit, provided we can pay for the enchantment itself first. This is the definition of a Timmy card, and it feels like the perfect tone-setter for an expansion full of big Dragons. Whether the card turns out to be competitively viable or not, it’s hard to deny that it’s an incredibly fun design.
Dracogenesis MTG
- Mana Value: 6RR
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Type: Enchantment
- Card Text: You may cast Dragon spells without paying their mana costs. You may cast Dragon spells without paying their mana costs.
For MTG players who have been keeping a close eye on Tarkir: Dragonstorm news, Dracogenesis won’t come as a huge surprise. Mark Rosewater heavily hinted at the card’s existence in his traditional teaser article for the set.
“Dragons get a new— typal enchantment based on a popular Zombie one.”
Mark Rosewater
As soon as this teaser came out, many players were convinced it would be a Rooftop Storm variant. This theory made a lot of sense since Dragons tend to have high mana costs, and would therefore benefit hugely from a way to remove those costs completely. Turns out, these players were 100% correct.
This isn’t a 1:1 translation of Rooftop Storm, mind you. Dracogenesis costs a full two mana more than that already-costly enchantment. It’s also more color-intensive, though when you’re spending eight mana that likely isn’t an issue. Dragons have a much higher average mana cost than Zombies, so this extra expense makes sense. That said, it’s an immediate roadblock to the card seeing serious play.
On the other hand, Dracogenesis has a sneaky upside over Rooftop Storm. Storm specifies you can only cast Zombie creature spells, while Dracogenesis allows you to cast Dragon spells in general. This lets you cast noncreature Kindred spells for free as well, provided they have the Dragon type.
Currently, there are no Dragon Kindred spells in the game, but there are some Kindred Shapeshifter spells that work too. Nameless Inversion and Crib Swap are free instant-speed removal spells with Dracogenesis out, for example. Perhaps we’ll see a new Dragon Kindred piece in Tarkir: Dragonstorm to synergize with this corner case ability.
A Dragonstorm In Standard
Right out of the gate, Dracogenesis is going to have a lot of problems slotting into current MTG formats. While getting to cast all of your Dragons for free is an undeniably powerful effect, eight mana is also an undeniably high cost. By the time you’ve ramped up to eight mana, you’ve likely used up all of your resources and have little left to cheat in.
There are a couple of ways to mitigate this in Standard right now. Zurgo and Ojutai as well as Hoarding Broodlord both generate card advantage right away, which should give you more free Dragons to drop. Broodlord, in particular, is good here since you can search up another copy of itself, cast it for free, and keep the chain going. Zurgo and Ojutai has some nice synergy too, in that it lets you both draw cards and bounce your other Dragons. You can replay the bounced Dragons for free to capitalize on enters effects, which is always a nice bonus.
These synergies are powerful, but there’s a problem here. They were already possible through the use of Omniscience; another expensive mana-cheating enchantment in the format right now. Players have found consistent ways to cheat this card out for less than its full cost, and at that point, it’s just better than Dracogenesis in every way since it lets you cast anything for free.
Sure Dracogenesis is easier to cast if you’re ramping into it fairly, but I have a hard time seeing decks in Standard doing that. Even with the advent of Mox Jasper, it just seems far too slow. This looks like a Timmy card through and through, and Timmy cards don’t tend to put up tournament results.
A Forever Home
Of course, Timmy cards do often shine in the most popular MTG format, Commander, and I expect Dracogenesis to shine there too. Both The Ur-Dragon and Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm consistently rank among the most-played Commanders in the format according to EDHRec. Dragon decks are extremely popular there, in other words, and Dracogenesis is going to be a must-have for a lot of those decks.
The shenanigans this enables with the full Commander card pool are endless. If you’re running Tiamat as your Commander, you get to cast it and five other Dragons for free with Dracogenesis out. Make sure two of those Dragons are Twinflame Tyrant and Terror of the Peaks, and you can likely engineer a combo win on the spot. If you want to play slightly more fair, you can just dodge the huge mana costs on the ridiculous D&D Dragons, like Ancient Copper Dragon and Ancient Silver Dragon. These cards are all Dragon deck staples anyway, but they really hit differently when cast for free.
Ultimately, despite these possibilities, I expect Dracogenesis to land in a similar spot to something like Crucible of Fire. This is a powerful-looking enchantment for Dragon decks in Commander, but in practice, it’s just a clunky win-more card. Getting a discount on future Dragons can be powerful, but it can also do literally nothing if you’re empty-handed. It doesn’t let you dodge Commander tax, either.
All of this to say: Dracogenesis will likely be worth a mint for a while due to casual Commander hype, but it won’t really be necessary for a serious deck. Best of both worlds, really.
