My top cards from Tarkir: Dragonstorm

26 cards on my brewing radar

Time to start brewing with Tarkir: Dragonstorm.

None of the mechanics jump out as being obviously strong outside of maybe Mobilize. Three color cards rarely see play and this is a three color set.

Even with that there are several exciting cards here, so let’s hop into it.

I’ll end with my top cards.

White

Clarion Conqueror

Impactful effect, good size, cheaper dragon, works with Collect Company.

Elspeth, Storm Slayer

If there was no static and the +1 created two soldiers, this would feel like a close but maybe not quite there walker. But with the potential for additional synergies with the static, this is an exciting walker.

Rally the Monastery

One of the big lessons of Stormchaser’s Talent is that, cheap noncreature spells that create prowess tokens is a good synergy. With just the first bullet Rally feels like it has the potential to be quite explosive. It also being an instant and having flexibility really makes it stand out.

Sunpearl Kirin

Esper Pixie always feels like a deck that wants to play at Instant speed but is often constrained to play at Sorcery speed. Getting a Pixie effect at instant speed feels like it can open some interesting, tempo control directions.

United Battlefront

The ability to hit two Simulacrum Synthesizer’s off of this makes this interesting. There is also likely some combo potential here.

Voice of Victory

The rate here seems ok on its own and turning off instant speed from your opponent feels like gravy. If you can throw in any synergies with the Mobilize tokens this seems like a potentially strong card.

Blue

Dispelling Exhale

Quietly, one of my greatest brewing accomplishment was in one weekend I got three Pioneer trophies with three different Dragon Turtle brews.

Silumgar’s Scorn featured prominently in those decks and Dispelling Exhale is better. We also now have the below card that pairs well with Dispelling Exhale.

Marang River Regent

This is a very my kind of style card: bounce, large creature, triggers greenshell, flexible to fill out the curve.

This is what I want to see out of an Omen card, where one half is strong on its own (the creature side), but there are plenty of times you are happy playing the Omen side.

This is the card I am most excited to brew with.

Ringing Strike Mastery

I am all about maximizing blue creature interaction to turn it into something that approximates real removal. And we are getting good blue creature interaction these days.

Unable to Scream struggles with all the +1/+1 counters and Role tokens in Gruul. My hope is Ringing Strike lines up better, buying the time to dominate the board to the point where you no longer care about the Untap effect Ringing Strike provides.

Roiling Dragonstorm

Omen of the Sea is one of my most played cards. This doesn’t have flash, but providing a discard outlet opens up possibilities.

This is in the same color as This Town Ain’t Big Enough.

I also think it may prove to be a reasonable card on the back of a few dragons. You only really need to return it once to be worth it.

Black

Avenger of the Fallen

We know 2/4 Deathtouch is a good stat line. And that Mobilize effect has the chance to be absurd. There was just a “get a ton of creatures into your graveyard” deck in the Top 8 of the Pro Tour. It will be interesting to see how much you need to build around this for it to be good and if an all in on creatures in the yard deck wants this.

Qarsi Revenant

3 Toughness on a three drop is not where you want to be at the moment. But if that changes this is a very interesting card that makes any kind of racing a challenge for the opponent.

Strategic Betrayal

This is one of my favorite cards in the set. I was one of the first in Pionner to run Go Blank maindeck.

Cards like Strategic Betrayal and Go Blank are strong not because they are inherently undercosted, but because they are different and if you play them in the right meta they will play more powerful than their mana cost. And that’s where you want to be as a brewer, playing the cards that overperform because they are optimized to the meta.

Red

Wizards commented that they are looking to add technology to Red to help it play later into the game instead of being limited to an aggro color. Based on the cards below I am excited for the direction they are heading with Red.

Cori-Steel Cutter

This card gets the award for card I have been most all over the place on how I feel about it. I went from initially thinking it was the best card in the set, to now wondering if it is even playable.

A big learning from Ledger Shredder is it was not obvious how this Flurry effect would play out just by reading the card, so it will be interesting to see how this plays.

Playing Stormcaller’s turn 1, Cori-Steel on 2, then Town and recasting Stormcaller’s on 3 seems like an interesting core to build around.

Magmatic Hellkite

I love the idea of stun counters on a land. So much of current Magic is you have plenty of cards and are mana constrained. So that stunned land can be what you need to get a bit ahead on tempo and ride that momentum to a victory.

It is unclear to me if Magmatic Hellkite will be good enough on its own, or will need to be played in a land destruction focused strategy.

Sunset Strikemaster

Beyond being a mana dork in Red, a 3/1 mana dork is quite interesting. 3 power makes it a much better blocker, able to chip in for meaningful damage here and there, and a real threat later game when your hand is deployed and you are attacking with the team.

I do not think it is great, but I am interested to test it and see how it plays.

Green

Dragon Sniper

I am a fan of relying on blocking in lieu of creature removal to make Green decks work. Blockers also have the advantage that you can curve out with them instead of risking wasting mana when you hold up creature removal.

Dragon Sniper is up there with Aegis Turtle in terms of best one mana blockers. Ideally there will be some way in the deck to give it one more power: map tokens, Proft’s, Bristly Bill, etc.

Heritage Reclamation

Just like with Pawpatch Formation, these versatile “sideboard” cards that can cantrip become maindeck considerations. I could see many green decks wanting to run one of these main.

Surrak, Elusive Hunter

Solid effect and seems like it will play well with Outcaster Trailblazer, may only be a one of.

Multicolor

Inevitable Defeat

Probably not good enough for three color, but interesting in the way Esper Pixie has shown with Hopeless Nightmare, where the ability to interact with an opponent while taking out chunks of their life can be something you can build around.

Shiko, Paragon of the Way

Again, probably not good enough for being three color. Being able to cast Stock Up with this is what’s particularly interesting to me. Force your opponent to deal with Shiko, while ensuring you will be following up with more gas.

Ureni, the Song of Unending

One strange thing in Pioneer is that there have not been any good 8 mana Neoform/Eldritch Evolution targets. This finally is one.

Could also see it finding a spot in some of the Standard Smuggler’s Surprise decks I play.

Top Cards

Glacierwood Siege and Craterhoof Behemoth

Discussed here:

Winning through anything

Mistrise Village

This is kind of jaw droppingly strong. Counterspells don’t matter as much as they used to, but still this can be massive in certain metas and for powering combo decks.

Ugin, Eye of the Storms

Also, kind of jaw dropping. Feels like a Modern Horizons card.

So many decks currently rely on keeping cards sitting on the board, counting on leveraging them later (think Zur Overlords). Ugin has the chance to break that up, potentially chewing through those cards in quick order.