As a member of the development team for Dragons of Tarkir, this Pro Tour was special to me in a way that no other Pro Tour will likely ever be.
Unfortunately, my time at Wizards of the Coast ended before the set was sent to print, so I didn’t get to see how the finished product came to be. The
upside was that I was mostly in the dark during spoiler season, just like everyone else. There are plenty of people out there who take things for granted,
me included, but I assure you spoiler season is a simple pleasure that I won’t take for granted again.
Starting right about now, I’m free! Watching the Pro Tour made me want to play more than ever, and thankfully, I don’t have to wait much longer. Pro Tour
Magic Origins is just around the corner as far as I’m concerned.
Despite some high expectations (and some… awkward moments), this Pro Tour delivered.
Protect the Raptors!
One of the biggest interactions that people were excited about was Deathmist Raptor plus some support. That support typically involves something like
Mastery of the Unseen or Whisperwood Elemental, but Den Protector appears to be the real winner. Some people, like Willy Edel, were calling it the best
card in Standard.
No copies of this strategy made it into the Top 8, but those decks are easily the coolest to come out of the Pro Tour.
Creatures (26)
- 2 Hornet Queen
- 4 Sylvan Caryatid
- 4 Courser of Kruphix
- 4 Satyr Wayfinder
- 1 Rattleclaw Mystic
- 4 Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
- 1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
- 1 Dragonlord Atarka
- 3 Den Protector
- 2 Deathmist Raptor
Lands (23)
Spells (11)
Seeing Willy sleeve up a Sultai graveyard deck should be nothing new, although the Den Protector / Deathmist Raptor engine gives it a new dimension.
Winning grindy games should no longer be an issue, and Den Protector with removal is particularly impressive. Eternal Witness was a helluva Magic card, but
with the various synergies and better stats, Den Protector looks almost as good.
Dragonlord Atarka also makes her first appearance of many, sliding into decks like G/R Devotion and even Abzan Control. The ability to nearly Plague Wind
your opponent and also leave an 8/8 behind is insane. I’ve died to it plenty already.
I was very pleased by the amount of innovation in the tournament, and I don’t think we’ve been able to find the best homes for these cards. If crazy decks
like Willy’s are showing up Week 3, it should be an exciting couple of months.
Creatures (30)
- 4 Sylvan Caryatid
- 4 Chromanticore
- 4 Satyr Wayfinder
- 2 Pharika, God of Affliction
- 3 Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
- 4 Soulflayer
- 2 Silumgar, the Drifting Death
- 3 Den Protector
- 4 Deathmist Raptor
Lands (23)
Spells (7)
Jamie Parke’s feature match with the Chromantiflayer deck created such an overwhelming amount of excitement on social media. It was contagious.
It also helped that his deck looked pretty good, too. Again, Deathmist Raptor and Den Protector were awesome, and a 4/4 flying, hexproof, indestructible
Soulflayer was able to ignore removal and Elspeth, Sun’s Champion against Seth Manfield’s Atarka Abzan deck. Eventually it picked up a Chromanticore and
flew over to victory in Game 1.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a deck shrug off Abzan so easily before, but a single Soulflayer was able to do it. For all the people out there that hate
playing against Siege Rhino and Elspeth, Sun’s Champion, it gave them hope.
This deck should be explored further.
Creatures (28)
- 4 Elvish Mystic
- 4 Sylvan Caryatid
- 4 Fleecemane Lion
- 3 Courser of Kruphix
- 4 Den Protector
- 3 Dragonlord Ojutai
- 4 Deathmist Raptor
- 2 Surrak, the Hunt Caller
Lands (24)
Spells (8)
Craig’s deck is the highest finishing Deathmist Raptor deck, so it should be no surprise that it looks the most normal. His deck is like a mashup of Abzan
Aggro and G/W Devotion with some Dragonlord Ojutais thrown in for good measure. Cards like Dromoka’s Command and Valorous Stance are worth playing already,
but they can also do a pretty good job protecting Ojutai once you think it’s time to start attacking.
Honestly, Craig’s deck looks really good, although I could see it having some issues with the decks that go bigger, such as G/R Devotion with Dragonlord
Atarka or anything with Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. Still, he fought through a ton of removal against Paulo Vitor Dama Da Rosa’s Esper Control deck. I just
feel like this deck might exist in the space right below where everyone else is, which means you’ll have people going over the top of you a bunch.
How to Build With Dragons
The other exciting thing to come out of Pro Tour Dragons of Tarkir was… uh, Dragons obviously. With some very tempting Dragon rewards, lots of people
tried to make it happen. I think they succeeded, but it could use some fine tuning.
I think there are two ways to do it, and the headliners are Thunderbreak Regent and Dragonlord Ojutai.
The core of Thunderbreak Regent, Stormbreath Dragon, and Draconic Roar is incredibly powerful. Both Dragons are quite aggressive, and Draconic Roar is the
perfect complement to that. The real question is what to pair them with. R/B Dragons showed up a bit in the winning Pro Tour decklists, but I think the
best options are Mantis Rider and Sylvan Caryatid.
If you want another tempo aspect to take advantage of the free damage provided by Thunderbreak Regent and Draconic Roar, you could certainly do worse from
Mantis Rider. All of those chip shots add up, and if your opponent is helping you a little bit with Thoughtseize, fetchlands, and/or painlands, they might
dead quickly and easily.
Sylvan Caryatid also helps bridge the gap between the earlygame and your midgame dragons, but in a different way. Ramping gives you a way to get a leg up
in mirror matches by getting ahead of them, but it also allows you to play Dragonlord Atarka.
The other option, Dragonlord Ojutai, was a defining factor of many of the “U/B Control” decks. They were willing to splash only it, as a hexproof finisher
was definitely wanted. Shouta Yasooka seemed to think fake hexproof was better than having slightly worse mana, so he went with Icefall Regent instead. Of
course, affecting the board the turn it enters the battlefield is a huge boon, while “all” Dragonlord Ojutai does is create a sub-game.
For now, I like Ojutai.
Creatures (19)
Lands (25)
Spells (16)
Creatures (14)
Lands (25)
Spells (21)
Creatures (10)
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (25)
Spells (23)
Creatures (24)
- 4 Elvish Mystic
- 4 Sylvan Caryatid
- 4 Stormbreath Dragon
- 4 Courser of Kruphix
- 2 Ashcloud Phoenix
- 2 Dragonlord Atarka
- 4 Thunderbreak Regent
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (24)
Spells (9)
How to Slay Dragons
It makes sense that the Dragonlords are difficult to kill in their own ways. After all, nobody wants to invest a bunch of mana into a huge creature only to
see it die to a removal spell for no value. If you’re someone who is interesting in killing Dragons, either because you’re firmly anti-Dragon or because
you want to beat the pseudo-mirrors, there are answers.
I would say this card is criminally underplayed, but white isn’t exactly a great color right now. Seeker of the Way and Soulfire Grand Master are great
against Mono-Red assuming they live, but most of the other decks are doing things that outclass them very quickly. Chained to the Rocks isn’t very good
right now either, so maybe R/B splash white is the way to go.
Or, at least, it would be, if black had any early creatures I was actually interested in casting. It could be that some weirdo Brad Nelson four-color deck
is the right answer. Sylvan Caryatid kinda solves the mana issues and is probably the two-drop you want in a Dragon deck anyway.
I’ve experimented with some Mantis Rider / Crackling Doom decks, and while they look good on paper, they tend to underperform. The manabase seemed like the
biggest issue, but at times it feels better than the Jeskai manabase because you have less painlands. I’m still working on it.
Awkwardly enough, one of the best ways to fight Dragons is by playing a card that should basically only be played in Dragon decks. Since this does double
duty against Mono-Red and the Dragon mirrors, it’s a card I like a lot.
I like Plummet a decent amount. The downside is that in decks like G/R Aggro, Roast, Draconic Roar, and Plummet are rarely good against the same decks.
Post-sideboard, you’re usually shuffling around your removal to get an optimal configuration, but you rarely go up on removal, even in matchups where you’d
want to. You also have a bunch of slots dedicated to finding that mix after sideboard when something like Hero’s Downfall would cover all your bases in a
different color.
That’s not a dealbreaker, but it is a significant downside to playing something like G/R.
The Tiny Red Menace
Some people just don’t respect Mono-Red anything (splash or no). After Pro Tour Fate Reforged, you’d think they’d learn their lesson. The do-nothing U/B
Control decks and Abzan decks with all three-mana cards and no Sylvan Caryatids clearly did not.
Of course, there is the hotly debated, age old strategy of hoping to dodge certain matchups. You lose a certain amount of percentage points by shaving some
cards you really want against control to hedge against aggro, but if the Pro Tours stay as evenly distributed, archetype-wise, it might be the correct
decision.
There are certain cards you can play if you’re looking to beat up on red decks, but I don’t like the sorcery speed aspect of Drown in Sorrow against a deck
full of dash creatures.
Obviously, this one is narrow, but it mostly gets the job done. Hall of Triumph and Atarka’s Command are gigantic beatings against Circle of Flame, as are
X/2 creatures. Circle of Flame is good in multiples, but how many do you really want to play? How often are you going to draw your sideboard card and have
them be able to play around it?
It’s an option, but it might not be worth it overall.
Ultimately, if you want to beat Mono-Red Aggro with U/B Control, it probably starts with Dragons.
Creatures (8)
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (26)
Spells (25)
Creatures (5)
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (27)
Spells (27)
Tapping out for Dragonlord Ojutai is a better plan than something that involves Pearl Lake Ancient. As a U/B player, you should basically be trying to end
the game instead of prolonging it against Mono-Red because U/B does not have inevitability against decks with twenty burn spells.
The best thing about Dragonlord Ojutai, Silumgar, the Drifting Death, and Dragonlord Silumgar is that they allow you to beat the hell out of cards that are
nightmares for the Pearl Lake Ancient version of U/B Control. Mastery of the Unseen, Outpost Siege, and various Planeswalkers are all things that gave U/B
Control nightmares, but now they can just power through it. It’s a scary world out there right now.
Being a proactive tapout strategy is the first step, but it doesn’t automatically give you a good matchup against Mono-Red. You have ways to invalidate
several of their cards or outright overpower them, but you also need a good sideboard plan.
I’ve got two of them.
Creatures (4)
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (26)
Spells (28)
James Buckingham had this package in his Season One Invitational deck, and I liked it a lot. Between those and Foul-Tongue Invocation, he had a reasonable
amount of lifegain to dig for in the midgame. If you start connecting with Dragonlord Ojutai, you typically win, but sometimes they cobble together enough
burn to finish you. By adding more lifegain, Ojutai kind of becomes a soft lock against them.
Basically everyone that played Esper Control at the Pro Tour figured out that the best way to build the deck was without too many white sources. Instead,
they used some Haven of the Spirit Dragons to cast Ojutai, so they couldn’t play things like Arashin Cleric or Ojutai’s Command. If someone figures out a
way to make the mana good enough to cast those while not becoming overly clunky, it would be pretty nice. Then again, maybe you don’t need to.
Creatures (1)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (27)
Spells (28)
Encase in Ice might not be great against Mono-Red by itself, but when paired with Master of Waves, it’s a beautiful way to make a creature irrelevant while
building your devotion. The fact that this plan doubles up against things like G/R Aggro makes it very attractive to me. If anything can get me to play U/B
Control, it’s something like this.
The Biggest Losers
After Chris Andersen’s Top 4 finish with G/W Devotion at the Season One Invitational, I heard some chatter about how maybe the deck wasn’t dead. After all,
it gained a few new tools and most people were acting like it never existed. As it turns out, G/W Devotion probably can’t hack it against similar decks
ramping out to Dragonlord Atarka. Chrandersen himself played G/R Devotion instead of his trusty G/W deck and ended up finishing 7-3 in Constructed, which
qualified him for the next Pro Tour.
It looked like the most common Jeskai variant to do well were of the Dragon variety. Todd, Brad, and company cooked up a nice looking Jeskai Tokens deck
for the Season One Invitational, but the deck largely underperformed at the Pro Tour.
Why?
There weren’t a ton of Virulent Plagues running around, but they were certainly present. The Dragonlord Ojutai sideboard plan is a good one, but it’s still
very tough to beat a Virulent Plague.
G/R Aggro and W/U Heroic also did kind of poorly. With CVM’s win at SCG Syracuse, I imagine the deck had a rather large target on its head. It also doesn’t
help that it doesn’t fare well against opposing, faster Dragonlord Atarkas, nor Dragonlord Silumgar or Icefall Regent. Again, it’s a matter of positioning,
and G/R Aggro is the deck that everyone is going slightly over the top of right now.
***
As for me, I played Standard all of last week on Magic Online, and I still have no idea what I want to be playing. It’s the opposite reason of what’s
normal, though — This time I have a lot of decks that I like. So far, Esper Control has served me the best, so that will be investigated further. Other
than that, I’m looking at Deathmist Raptor and Den Protector to see if I can find a good shell. That’s by far what I’m most excited about, so we’ll see how
that goes.