Top Ten Cards from Khans Dragons of Tarkir

Cards for casual tables compete against every card ever printed by man—seriously. I remember someone using Ring of Ma'Ruf to put an ace of spades in his hand. Everyone wants to play their fun cards, and from flipping Chaos Orb to dropping the Where fifth of Who/What/When/Where/Why, everything is on tap.

That helps us figure out the value of cards with a great deal of accuracy from the first gun. Sure, cards will sometimes surprise you! But we can suss out what is likely to be the best at dialing it in against multiple opponents.

With that in mind, what are the top ten cards from Dragons of Tarkir for multiplayer? For playing at the kitchen table? For rocking the block with your friends?

We’ll start with three cards that narrowly missed my Top 10 and then move on into the good stuff!

Honorable Mention 2 — Boltwing Marauder — This set has a good amount of midrange or late-game Dragons. Many of them are too slow or have weaker numbers to really make an impact on the board. There’s too much flash and not enough dash. Boltwing Marauder is one that has everything going for it, and it’s one of the Dragons I expect to rise to the top. 5 mana for a 5/4 flyer? Check! A strong presence on the board that you can lean on throughout the game? A useful trigger that costs no mana to use? Check! Anytime another critter enters your board, you can give any creature you have +2 to the front. Note that you are not required to amp up your Marauder if you have a better target. Anything you rock can be pumped. Note that nowhere on this ability does it use the word nontoken. Creatures like Beetleback Chief and Grave Titan will trigger the Marauder a bunch of times. That’s a lot of power (literally) that you are reaping from your investment.

Honorable Mention 3 — Dragonlord Atarka – I don’t care if you are Niv-Mizzet from Ravnica or Nicol Bolas from Dominaria. Dragons should smash face. Forget about clever abilities and interesting mechanics. Dragons smash. That’s who they are. That’s their raison d’etre. They go, “Rawr,” and they smash people. There’s no question that Atarka is the smashiest of the lot. She will bring beats in any form. When she arrives, not only is she one of the biggest Dragons ever at 8/8, but she’ll hit other stuff on the battlefield just for daring to be there. Hello, your highness!

10 — Surrak, the Hunt Caller – Receiving a 5/4 creature for 4 mana is a solid investment—it’s not likely to embarrass you in the red zone. That’s all you get until you reach ferocious, which only requires 3 more power. When that comes online, you can play and swing with stuff with haste-fueled alacrity. Let me give you a simple example. Suppose you drop any number of 3-powered creatures early, such as Troll Ascetic on turn three (or on turn two with acceleration). Now play this on the next turn. Do you have ferocious? Yup, so swing with Surrak and your Troll for 8 damage. On turn five (on turn four with mana acceleration), drop a beatstick, give it haste, and swing for a lot more. If your beatstick as at least 5 more power (easily done), you will deal 13 damage (for a 21-damage clock). Surrak is no joke.

9 — Silumgar's Command — They may not possess amazing options for multiplayer, but the latest Command cycle works. Most of them aren’t super-great and don’t have abilities that are too situational. Many of the previous Commands could break a game in half, such as Austere Command. These can give you a two-for-one-trade at best. (Some have abilities that aren’t even card-for-card trades.) So what I want to see in these Commands are choices that give you a lot of different options for the board state and easily give you a two-for-one deal at the checkout counter. Silumgar's Command is the best choice—you can counter one spell and kill another Planeswalker; or you can -3/-3 a creature and kill a Planeswalker. You can’t counter creatures, but you can kill them if they are on the smaller side of life. That works out. And the bounce spell gives you a useful option to counter things like Darksteel Mutation, Control Magic, or other harmful Auras on your stuff as well as the many other tricks we know and love bounce effects for. This is the best of the lot, and that’s why it comes the closest to approaching the casting costs of the older Command cycle from Lorwyn.

8 — Damnable Pact — Ever since Greed and Necropotence, black has linked card-drawing with life loss. Many of the black cards have forced you to jump through hoops (such as Necrologia). This is very simple—it’s a black Braingeyser. For however many cards you draw, you lose life. In a format like Commander, the 40-life start gives you a huge supply to toss into the machine, so you can draw a mega-ton of cards with the Pact. You can also aim it at people to either deck them or to kill them with life-loss, and that added flexibility is pretty interesting.

7 — Commune with Lava — Speaking of Braingeysers in this set, Commune with Lava is a massive upgrade to existing red technology. It can do a lot, especially since it’s an instant. Just cast it at the end of one player’s turn, untap, cast your revealed cards, and then pass the turn. Red doesn’t normally have it this this good. You don’t need the right home—it works in a lot of decks. Like Chaos Warp, it’s the sort of red card I’d recommend picking up in quantities so that you can always have some.

6 — Den Protector — Speaking of cards that are flexible in various packages, check out this recursion-oriented soul. Eternal Witness is a great card, and it’s one I doubt we will ever see bettered. It can be used and abused in a variety of ways since it’s a creature. Den Protector is no Eternal Witness. It costs 5 mana to play morphed and unmorph, it can’t be used with enters-the-battlefield tricks, and so forth. However, there is something the Protector will do for you. It will Regrowth a card and give you a 3/2 that can only be blocked by a creature with 3 or more power. As it grows bigger, the range of creatures that can block it become increasingly smaller. We know how good both recursion and evasion are, especially in multiplayer environments. This combines it into one sweet package.

What ended up making the top five?

5 — Pristine Skywise — Did you like Pristine Angel? Did you enjoy another print run of her in Conspiracy last year? Isn’t she awesome? After you’ve attacked with her for some damage, people have to assume that one of the cards in your hand is an instant that can untap her and surprise someone who was considering heading your way with an attack. As long as you have mana untapped and cards in your hand, you are threatening an untap. Pristine Skywise is a clear throwback to the Angel. In some ways, it’s actually better since you are getting a 6/4 flyer instead of a 4/4. But in other ways, it’s worse—you can only harness the protection shield when you play the spell. Pristine Skywise exchanges better defense for an improved offense. The Skywise is really nice adjunct for your next deck!

4 — Narset Transcendent — What can I say about Narset that a bunch of other writers haven’t already said? I could say she sucks. No one has said that. I’d be wrong, but no one will have said it! You have a ton of loyalty for your 4-mana investment, and the fact that she doesn’t protect herself isn’t as important in Multiplayer World. She draws cards and has an odd version of a Fork. Even though her ultimate is about as Magic-friendly as Iona, Shield of Emeria, she appeals to a strong subset of players. She combos very well with Magic cards.

3 — Thunderbreak Regent — Let’s take a look at the various ways this is a powerful creature. It’s a 4-mana 4/4 flyer. Look at how far we’ve come; compare this to something like Dragon Whelp! That alone gives us a true beater for cheap. But the Regent of Breaking Thunder does you one better. It will Lightning Bolt an opponent who tries to target any of your Dragons (which includes your newly minted 4/4 Regent). There are a couple of interesting things under the hood here. First, it deals out that 3 damage when targeted by abilities as well as by spells. It doesn’t matter if your foe uses Capsize or Aether Adept to bounce your Regent, he or she is taking 3 to the face. Also, because the opponent is taking damage, you can smash his or her Planeswalker instead (if he or she has any). Can you imagine a player with a sexy, built-up ’Walker that needs to target your draconic air force for removal? From Maze of Ith to Swords to Plowshares, folks will be taking damage all over the place. This protection ability is subtly a lot better than it looks.

2 — Dragonlord Silumgar — Only the Silumgar version of this thing makes my top-of-the-top list for the set. A lot of the Elder Dragons are outclassed by other Dragons in their colors that are just more fun and interesting. The Silumgar is a feature in a U/B control shell, and from Commander to Standard, your casual decks can use it. The fact that you net a 3/5 is fine, and with deathtouch and a high defense, you can play control and keep away creatures that fear death. Because you can steal a Planeswalker, Silumgar is going to create some great stories. You’ll steal someone’s Sarkhan Vol and start smashing with the hasted creatures it can give you. Wouldn’t you love to ultimate a ’Walker that’s not even in your colors? This is great stuff!

1 — Sunscorch Regent — Take a look at the usefulness of cards like Taurean Mauler and its ability to grow into a major threat at the kitchen table. You can easily throw on 5 to 8 counters in a couple of turns in a four-player game, and the more people you add, the faster the Regent will stock up. Meanwhile, your counters will also be gaining you life as well. That’s a nice double-bonus! Because it flies, the Regent of Scorching Suns can swing over any ground defenses foes may have erected. The combination of an efficient 4/3 flyer for 5 mana with a one-card win condition is intoxicating. That makes the white Regent the best of a strong Regent cycle and also a pretty sexy card, all things considered.

And there we are! Other cards in my top twenty that didn’t make the cut included Dragonlord Dromoka, Savage Ventmaw, and Kolaghan's Command.

About a year ago, I discussed the financial aspects of Dragons and their enabler prior to the upcoming Tarkir block. Man, a lot of Dragon cards have really jumped in price since then! If there are a few Dragon enablers you like for your decks on the cheaper side of life, pick them up now.

So, what did you like? Was there anything you’d want to add to the list or is there something you think I am overvaluing?

See you next week,

Abe Sargent