Magic’s newest expansion takes us back to the plane of Tarkir, as dragonstorms rage out of control after the departure of Ugin and the creation of the Omenpaths. A new set means new cards, and we’re finishing our review with the red, green, and colorless cards.
Tarkir: Dragonstorm will release to Magic: the Gathering Online and Arena on April 8th, 2025, and to the tabletop on April 11th.
Last time we covered the white, blue, and black cards, and this time as usual we won’t be looking at everything, but what we will be looking at we’ll be looking at primarily but not exclusively with an eye for Commander play.
Breaching Dragonstorm
FromTheShire: This is a really nice repeatable cascade effect, though you likely want it in an actual Dragon deck without many low drops so you’re not spinning this into a 2 mana spell or something. We’re still in early access so mostly we’re seeing content creators test wild new decks against each other rather than Mice Aggro, but something like Jeskai Dragons could well exist with this. In Commander ways to blink and clone this will be sweet as well.
BPhillipYork: In theory you could maybe use this to flip a suspend with no cost card or something like that, or maybe use Ghen, Arcanum Weaver to keep flipping this into and out of play (or Replenish it). Given these are “storm cards” it seems like they should trigger every time you do the thing the return to your hand at the end of the turn or, really just anything to be more exciting than these over costed bounce enchantments.
Saffgor: Unlike a lot of pseudo-Cascade effects, this works like Discover where it triggers even if Breaching Dragonstorm wasn’t cast. That means, in my eyes, this belongs more so in a blink or reanimator shell than a Dragon deck, though whether such a strategy exists with red in its color identity is another story.
Cori-Steel Cutter
FromTheShire: I really like this for Standard aggro decks, trample and haste is an amazing combo, especially if Monstrous Rage eventually eats a ban, and it comes with an anthem to boot. On top of all that, it sticks out on the board to keep making new tokens to auto equip itself to, and those even have prowess as well.
BPhillipYork: This is a fun monk with prowess generator to me. I don’t even know that I’d bother equipping it other than to give the haste, so for those decks that want to prowess up a bunch it’s a great enabler. To be fair it’s really just a decent token generator all around, and the prowess thing could be largely irrelevant since it’s every turn, not your turn, so it slots nicely into certain sorts of cantrip decks.
Saffgor: This looks like an awesome cube card that won’t cut it in traditional 60-card formats. That being said, the fact this is generically a way to hand out relevant keywords and a mild buff, on top of going wide, could mean it has a home alongside Commanders like the new Elsha.
Dracogenesis
FromTheShire: This is both a super cool card that will be insanely popular and windmill slammed into a billion Commander Dragon decks, and also is pretty heavily win more and liable to be disappointing at times. Dragons are expensive but even so by the time you make it to 8 mana there’s a pretty good chance you’ve already emptied your hand. You need both a bunch of ramp to get to this and a bunch of card draw to have things to play, and at that point you’re already casting them and killing people. The times you slam it and then Tiamat are going to be memorable though.
BPhillipYork: Oh so I’m paying for Omniscience but I’m getting it only for dragons? Granted, it’s not a blue card, so for 8 mana what can you expect? Could be a fun card in some kind of weirdo reanimator deck that does something to get an 8 cost enchantment out in order to free cast over costed mediocre creatures. I sort of like how hard you’d have to work to get this effect, and how you obviously could’ve just won the game. It won’t even let you just recast your commander infinitely, which would be kind of funny. But because of how commander tax is calculated, it’s not part of the mana cost, it’s added on after.
Saffgor: While in 99% of cases, this is strictly a win-more Timmy card, the fact that is is a massive, game-ending enchantment in Red means that it has one home outside of magical Christmasland: Scramble. Using a Commander with a Background, such as Ganax, Astral Hunter alongside Reality Scramble-style effects with Dracogenesis as the only enchantment in your deck, you can ensure you’ll be hitting it, tutoring this 8 mana value card directly onto the battlefield. From there, you could do Cloudstone Curio loops, among other things, to secure the win.
Fire-Rim Form
FromTheShire: Look, this is extremely not Monstrous Rage, but then again, what is? There is a solid argument that it might catch a ban however, and at that point we will likely see a split of Mice Aggro with other pieces and a further refinement of Boros Auras which is currently running things like Demonic Ruckus to go with your Optimistic Scavenger and Sheltered by Ghosts. +2/+0 and first strike is a great way to blow people out or sneak in those last couple of points on an unblocked creature, so I think this is at least worth testing.
Fleeting Effigy
FromTheShire: Bouncing back to your hand and a largely useless creature type are the drawbacks here, this is a great aggro card that may end up looking for a home. The most likely ones are in either burn, Rage, or a flurry deck, as this plays poorly with Auras. Maybe it replaces Hired Claw in the Rage decks?
BPhillipYork: It’s okay if you want creatures bouncing in and out of play for some reason, for example if you’re running Birgi, God of Storytelling etc.. this will just net you mana every turn, which is nice.
Saffgor: Goblin Guide this is not, but if anything could make Flurry aggro a thing in Standard, this would be it.
Iridescent Tiger
FromTheShire: There’s combo potential here with things like Cloudstone Curio and Temur Sabertooth with cost reducers or mana doublers, so if you see one of these hit the table keep your counterspells handy.
BPhillipYork: Okay, sure with cost reducers or whatever or to mana fix. It seems like it should count as all colors too sort of like Transguild Courier. Or I don’t really see what the point of this is.
Saffgor: Wise to add that cast clause, but it means this kitty’s not doing anything outside of limited.
Magmatic Hellkite
FromTheShire: Love this guy, 4 mana Dragon so you can cast it fairly early and it both hates on nonbasics and stuns the replacement? Absolutely backbreaking at the right time. Even in Commander having the hate attached to a creature with a relevant type is always really nice to have as an option.
BPhillipYork: Yes, it’s Dragonstorm, so we have to make up lots of dragons. To be fair a 4/5 flyer for 4 that blows up a nonbasic isn’t awful.
Saffgor: Obsidian Charmaw, is that you? Unlikely, as even with the stun counter, the mana differential is vast.
Molten Exhale
FromTheShire: There’s definitely things you want to kill that are out of Lightning Strike range in a Dragon deck so I could see the argument, this could be competing with Twinmaw Stormbrood outside of the mirror. It can be instant speed and hit planeswalkers though which might be enough to at least include a couple of copies.
BPhillipYork: I’m sure this is like a Standard card, I wouldn’t run it in Commander.
Overwhelming Surge
FromTheShire: If there continue to be nasty artifact decks floating around this is a great sideboard card, you don’t want to be casting this for only one mode if you can help it tough.
BPhillipYork: Cool Abrade comes back, that’s sort of nice, though it costs 1 more so it’s pretty marginal at that point.
Saffgor: Since when is Abrade too good for standard?
Runescale Stormbrood
FromTheShire: Remember that possible Jeskai Dragons deck from earlier? This is definitely going to be a player in it, offering a good tempo counterspell to keep you alive early or a scary threat to close a game out.
BPhillipYork: The idea of a reusable counterspell seems like kind of a nightmare. Also kind of a pseudo prowess if you decide to roll it out, which seems decent enough.
Sarkhan, Dragon Ascendant
FromTheShire: Oh baby, now we are TALKING. We have already seen the legendary Frank Karsten brew an Izzet Dragons list with our pal here in addition to Sarkhan, Soul Aflame, Mox Jasper, and Twinflame Tyrant to offer a possible turn 4 kill, and having watched gameplay of it the deck is sweet as hell. It’s probably not going to be a tier 1 deck but you will absolutely see it on the ladder because it’s fun an powerful, and if you don’t have the right things in place counter or removal wise you will simply die.
BPhillipYork: This is the simultaneously the weirdest and most boring of planeswalkers to me, it’s the nerd guy whose obsessed with dragons. Oh yah there’s a verison where he becomes a dragon.
Saffgor: This is a card where being Legendary is a massive downside for standard play, and it isn’t good enough to be a Commander. Bit of a wash.
Shocking Sharpshooter
FromTheShire: Never hurts to have another copy of this effect in Commander, and in Standard it’s possible this makes it into Mardu Tokens. Kind of depends if being on 2 means this fits into the curve better than Warleader’s Call, which is otherwise much better being both an anthem and harder to remove.
BPhillipYork: Okay well having even more redundancy in this effect is nice to have.
Stadium Headliner
FromTheShire: Incredibly stoked for this card on a personal level. One of the things that made Goblin decks go back in the day was Gempalm Incinerator, and this is a solid Incinerator at home attempt. Yes you have to resolve it rather than being able to simply cycle it but I’ll take what I can get. Right now you are usually relying on Burst Lightning and sometimes that just doesn’t get you there.
I have now played some games with it that the set has released, and yeah this has won me multiple games removing big problematic creatures.
BPhillipYork: This guy seems like a beast I’m sure this is all over red deck wins right now in Standard, and solid enough for token caring Commander decks.
Stormscale Scion
FromTheShire: The odds of actually storming with this are low but never 0, and this is pretty much a fine rate for the body plus anthem anyway. There’s one at the top of the aforementioned Izzet Dragons list as well.
BPhillipYork: Oh a dragon lord with storm, well that’s fun. I mean it is what it is, expensive and kind of stupid, but if you manage to storm a few times then cast it, maybe red rituals or what have you, then yeah your dragons which are generally medium creatures become big flyers.
Saffgor: It’s flashy, but this is…fine, probably. Unless you’ve got haste boardwide, this is going to take a turn to actually end the game, and there’s tons of things that can do that for 6 mana and multiple casts prior.
Sunset Strikemaster
FromTheShire: Mostly notable for being a mana dork in red, those are quite rare to begin with, and even more so if they don’t either sacrifice themselves or restrict said mana to being used on very specific things.
BPhillipYork: Notable for being an unconditional red mana dork, which I’m sure people are howling about the color pie. Other than that sure it’s fine.
Tersa Lightshatter
FromTheShire: Solid stats, haste, card selection, AND you can get stuff back from your yard? Hell yeah.
BPhillipYork: That’s just a solid value ability, and a solid all around creature. Card selection to start and helping you fill your yard to trigger her ability, and haste on top so you can roll out and use it on turn 1 is just pretty solid all around. Sadly not really enough meat on the bones to use as a commander all that well, but still solid enough auto-consider for decks.
Saffgor: I’m bullish beyond belief on Tersa, to the point where I’ve got an article written about her, and the deck I bought in preparation for Dragonstorm’s release. While not especially flashy, Tersa is clearly pushed for 60 card Magic, but allows for a really awesome graveyard-manipulation game plan in eternal formats like Commander, where you have the tools to sculpt the yard. Definitely excited to talk about her more in detail, but be on the lookout, this wizard is a sleeper hit in my eyes!
Attuned Hunter
FromTheShire: There are a ton of ways to get cards out of your graveyard one at a time, so the fact that this has trample means this is a must remove before it beats you to death with the quickness.
BPhillipYork: Yeah it will get big probably but who cares.
Saffgor: Soon we’ll have enough ‘leave the graveyard’ effects in Green to build around it, but for the time being this is just another piece of that puzzle.
Bloomvine Regent
FromTheShire: Perfect for a Dragon deck, this is either a Cultivate early or a solid body that also stabilizes you vs aggro later on.
BPhillipYork: Oh wow so now Cultivate is re-usable. Bonkers.
Saffgor: In Monogreen, this creeps Kodama’s Reach and the like, but this limiting you to basic Forests means it’s a sidegrade at best elsewhere. Worse than it looks.
Dragon Sniper
FromTheShire: Depending on how good Dragons get this could be an interesting sideboard card. Reach and deathtouch is excellent, and the vigilance means this takes counters really well too.
BPhillipYork: I hate cards like this because they just slow down games.
Encroaching Dragonstorm
FromTheShire: A reusable Explosive Vegetation? Hell yeah. The ramp means this is great for Dragon decks which historically are expensive, and it fixes you as well.
BPhillipYork: Well if you want ramp, which Dragon decks generally do, this is sort of okay but expensive.
Saffgor: Similar to the other ‘dragonstorms’, you don’t want to actually pay for this multiple times, but instead blink or reanimate it. Anikthea, Hand of Erebos is a huge fan.
Herd Heirloom
FromTheShire: It’s a little less attractive since we have Llanowar Elves in Standard for a while now but incredible for Commander. The creature rider doesn’t matter as much since that’s almost certainly what you want to use this on anyway, and it does dodge removal much better. No Bolting this. And handing out trample and card draw late game is very nice.
BPhillipYork: Solid enough mana rock for creatures, and then on the backend card draw, this seems fine for narrowly targeted decks that need to get a commander rolling and then doing something to sort of snowball.
Saffgor: It feels like someone at Wizards made a bet to see if they could get green Commander decks to play a 2 mana rock—congrats, you won. Normally you simply play land ramp, but I think Heirloom is flexible enough to warrant a slot there.
Heritage Reclamation
FromTheShire: Power crept Naturalize. There’s not much analysis here, it’s simply better.
BPhillipYork: It’s awesome to see green just keep getting solid, instant speed interaction.
Lasyd Prowler
FromTheShire: Great self mill piece that makes something huge late game, very nice.
BPhillipYork: I think the renew ability could be pretty useful dumping counters onto something dangerous. The mill is fine conditionally if you’re wanting to sell mill, though it’s pretty expensive to be still setting up your yard on turn 4 rather than doing your thing.
Saffgor: Delicious little synergy piece, but you need to have a creature you want to get huge to make this worthwhile, unlike its ‘mill lands for value’ brethren.
Nature’s Rhythm
FromTheShire: Would you pay 1 extra mana for your Green Sun’s Zenith that stays in your graveyard to flash back later rather than shuffling into your deck? I sure as hell would, plus you’re effectively getting a second copy for your deck. It even can fetch non-green creatures. Who needs to when we have literally Craterhoof Behemoth in Standard right now?
BPhillipYork: Um, yay another really solid creature tutor for green. Sort of green’s thing, so not that remarkable, but will show up, bigly, in decks that want game changers. The fact you get to do it twice is pretty nice.
Saffgor: This is going to end a lot of games. The amount of 2-card creature wins that this enables is vast, and even played “fairly” a double tutor is insane. Not actually a massive fan of this existing in all honesty.
Piercing Exhale
FromTheShire: The next one in the cycle, this offers you removal and card selection in one package, not bad at all.
BPhillipYork: So basically bog standard bite card with set based mechanic stapled on, this is a pretty predictable card. Its fine, totally fine.
Rainveil Rejuvenator
FromTheShire: Again great for self mill, this may well cost too much to make a splash in Standard though. Yes those decks should have ways to get counters on this to tap for a bunch but that’s quite a lot of setup for a 4 drop when you’re getting dunked on by aggro.
BPhillipYork: I do like things that tap for mana equal to their power because it’s relatively easy to go infinite with those.
Saffgor: Another creature to add to the ‘goes infinite with Umbral Mantle pile. One of the better ones, too.
Surrak, Elusive Hunter
FromTheShire: This card seems sweet, and it is for Commander, but absolutely do not play this in any Constructed format where Orcish Bowmasters is legal. It’s a lethal trap – your opponent simply has to target this over and over and you will immediately draw yourself out cause this ain’t a may ability.
BPhillipYork: Well that’s decent against blue and interaction heavy decks. If that’s really important to you, or you have an opponent that commits lots of crimes this is a solid way to either protect your stuff or getting value out of it.
Synchronized Charge
FromTheShire: It depends on how able the counters deck is to go wide as well – vigilance and trample is excellent but you really want this to end the game on the spot.
BPhillipYork: I think the vigilance and trample for all creatures you control with counters is the likely real use of the card, for counter heavy decks using this as a finisher that gives them all trample to close things out.
Warden of the Grove
FromTheShire: Well this needs to die on sight, that’s gonna get out of control real fast.
BPhillipYork: This could slowly really make your creatures real big, or shoot out lots of +1/+1s aggressively if you have a way to get a bunch of counters on it quickly, which with so many versions of The Ozolith and other stuff like that running around isn’t that hard to pull off. Could make a Hydra deck nuts really fast.
Saffgor: This card is better than it looks, and it looks awesome. As soon as this has a counter on it, every single nontoken creature comes with a rider, and it scales from there. Awesome on its own, awesome in multiples, though likely a bit too fragile outside of mid-power Commander.
Mardu Monument
FromTheShire: Maaaaybe this fixes you early in Mardu Tokens and then gives you something to close out with? I suspect that’s not what you want to spend a turn doing though. The only reason I’m even entertaining the idea is that three color decks ARE going to have somewhat clunkier mana bases than in original Khans owing to the absence of fetch lands and it is tough for aggro decks to play tapped lands. That’s the same reason I think this doesn’t see play though, you’re still taking a turn off when you want to be swinging and the late game utility likely doesn’t make up for that.
BPhillipYork: This is a strangely okay card, compare it to green land fixing and they go onto the field. It’s 2 colorless which is always cheap, and has a weird way to sacrifice for value later, though I’m guessing most of the time this hits the table its just for fixing. Red and black mostly struggle with that, white generally not so much, so it could be quite useful.
Temur Monument
FromTheShire: You have access to green and we’ve seen at least 2 good actual ramp spells just in this set, no thanks.
BPhillipYork: Green just does this better so not sure there’s a point if you have access to green.
Abzan Monument
FromTheShire: Again, with access to green don’t bother with fixing, and the token is both highly dependent on your board state and completely vanilla. Nah.
Jeskai Monument
FromTheShire: Here we lack ramp again and the tokens have flying so it’s not wildly impossible, but Jeskai is also usually going to want to close things out quickly. Maybe you could use it if it was as an end of your opponents turn thing after holding up counter magic with a control deck, except it’s sorcery speed only so you can’t.
Sultai Monument
FromTheShire: We have both the green and the largely useless tokens problem again, pass from me.
Dragonfire Blade
FromTheShire: Most single target removal is monocolored so this is pretty solid protection, a decent pump, and cheap to free to equip to your multicolor Commander. I like it.
Dragonstorm Globe
FromTheShire: 3 mana rocks needing to be doing something pretty impressive to merit inclusion in Commander these days, and this fits the bill. Auto include in Dragon decks, unplayable everywhere else.
Mox Jasper
FromTheShire: You don’t get the same wildly explosive starts as other Moxes unless you’re running 1 mana changelings, but this still does some powerful stuff in decks like the Izzet Dragons list mentioned previously with playing multiple copies in the same turn etc.
BPhillipYork: So it’s arguably the worst Mox ever, since the cheapest Dragon is like, 1, but most dragons are like 4+. Maybe MAYBE if you are really hard up on Dragons or running a weird commander like Korless, Scale Singer, or for some reason you just want zero cost artifacts like Urza, Lord High Artificer.
Saffgor: This is a fairly balanced Mox, as it really only reaches the heights of Mox Amber at best, and dragons are usually higher up the curve than Legendary Creatures. Cool card but it’s likely worse than it appears, and will consistently be kept in hands that don’t actually enable it very well.
Ugin, Eye of the Storms
FromTheShire: This card is insane. Perfectly on curve for 1+1+1=7 in Tron, exiles something when you cast it and then could theoretically +0 for up to 3 more exiles with Chromatic Sphere and company. If you don’t have them in hand, don’t worry, you can gain some life and draw! In Standard this will be slightly slower to get to but no less problematic once it hits the field. I expect we will be seeing Ugin a lot in the days to come.
BPhillipYork: Wow that’s fairly crazy for like Eldrazi decks. I sort of hate how Ugin, the anti-Eldrazi guy, combos so well with Eldrazi. But oh well, goes in any kind of massive colorless deck, so maybe also artifacts.
Saffgor: Ends games in Standard quite well, and is the…best ever Tron wincon to date? Not to mention, this also goes crazy in Commander alongside any colorless or even monocolor deck. While expensive, it’s flashy, splashy, and will be the reason you turn the corner, akin to the Teferi of Dominaria standard.
Dalkovan Encampment
FromTheShire: Part of the slightly awkward fixing package, most of the time this will probably enters untapped but there will be games where you stumble because it doesn’t. The token generation is very solid.
BPhillipYork: It’s okay. Entering conditionally tapped so you can later pay 3 to get 2 temporary creatures probably won’t cut it unless you’re taking a bunch of extra combats, but even then there’s better cards.
Mistrise Village
FromTheShire: Uncounterable for a single blue? That’s great in every format.
BPhillipYork: Yeah that’s a very strong effect.
Saffgor: This is the only member of the cycle worth talking about in all honesty, as it’s essentially Boseiju, Who Shelters All without the life cost at a slightly steeper cost. Incredible card though, and will secure games into control boards.
Great Arashin City
FromTheShire: Not bad, but would be much better if it let you target any graveyard. Will depend much more on how well it fixes your deck.
BPhillipYork: This is like, fine, but really won’t move the needle much in a good deck and the conditionally tapped won’t pan out. Plus you’re rarely so tapped for good things to do in Commander that you want to be paying two mana to exile a creature card from your own yard to get a 1/1. If it was any graveyard that would be very different.
Cori Mountain Monastery
FromTheShire: It’s a relatively low cost to have access to impulse draw in the late game, and this will allow you to sneak out a few extra wins over time.
BPhillipYork: 4 is really too much mana for this, but it’s still somewhat potentially useful in certain kinds of decks, or as a weird defense against someone messing with the top of your deck if you’re tutoring something there and want to keep it.
Kishla Village
FromTheShire: Again a late game mana sink due to the cost, that’s pretty good filtering and graveyard filling though.
BPhillipYork: Erm too expensive.
Maelstrom of the Spirit Dragon
FromTheShire: Are you a Dragon deck? Then you’re slamming as many copies as your format allows. There’s no enters tapped downside, it color fixes you, and if you’ve stalled out later in the game it lets you tutor for your best Dragon. Excellent.
BPhillipYork: In like 5 color Dragon decks it’s fine.
That wraps up our look at the cards of Tarkir: Dragonstorm. Join us next next week as return to regular content!
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