It doesn’t take many 4/4s with flying to kill a normal, 20-life opponent.

When Dragon’s Maze’s Dragonshift was revealed, there wasn’t too much positive feedback, and reactions about it in Limited seemed to focus on the negatives of both the 7-mana cost with heavy color requirements and the necessity for onboard creatures with which to actually attack Dragon-style.

Today, we’ll find a few Izzet cards that mitigate both of those issues and build a Standard deck with a veritable storm of Dragons.

"Dragon Overload"

• Creatures (14)
• 4 Goblin Electromancer
• 4 Gore-House Chainwalker
• 4 Guttersnipe
• 2 Talrand, Sky Summoner

• Spells (23)
• 4 Battle Hymn
• 4 Dragonshift
• 4 Think Twice
• 3 Goblin Rally
• 4 Krenko's Command
• 4 Talrand's Invocation

• Lands (23)
• 7 Mountain
• 8 Island
• 4 Steam Vents
• 4 Sulfur Falls

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Pre-Dragon Troops

Izzet isn’t normally known for its token-making spells, but Standard has been kind in the last couple years—probably just in preparation for Dragonshift and this article, right? That’s why we see Talrand and his Invocation all ready to don the Form of the Dragon. (No wait; that’s something else.)

They’re both quite powerful cards and make nice bodies to shift. I wonder if Krenko and Talrand, relatively new characters from Magic 2013, knew their lackeys would be hanging around with the Izzet crew.

Quickening the Process

Goblin Electromancer has electromancy down pat with his cost-reducing superpower, and he can assist in overloading the Izzet’s favorite magic—especially when it guarantees him a spot in the sky, raining fire down on the opponent.

The other mana-accelerating card is Battle Hymn. With all the tokens and Goblin Electromancers around, it starts to look less like a Pyretic Ritual (or worse) and more like a Dark Ritual or Cabal Ritual with threshold. Of course, there are times in some games when there are already a bunch of lands on the battlefield and the ritual isn’t going to help regardless of the number of the creatures. But the whole point of Battle Hymn is to never make it to that stage of the game and instead enact something like this:

• Turn one (on the draw) – Mountain
• Turn two – Sulfur Falls, Goblin Electromancer
• Turn three – Mountain, Krenko's Command, Krenko's Command, Battle Hymn, Goblin Rally
• Turn four – Sulfur Falls, Battle Hymn, Dragonshift overloaded, attack for 36

Far-fetched maybe, but now we know what we’re shooting for. And Dragonshifting on turn five or six with even just five creatures seems fine.

Standard Aside

When I started with this concept, I envisioned a modification of a fringe combo deck from pre-RTR Standard. Here’s an example list:

"Kuldotha Steak"

• Creatures (4)
• 4 Memnite

• Spells (36)
• 4 Battle Hymn
• 2 Reforge the Soul
• 3 Burn at the Stake
• 3 Past in Flames
• 4 Dragon Fodder
• 4 Faithless Looting
• 4 Gitaxian Probe
• 4 Infernal Plunge
• 4 Kuldotha Rebirth
• 4 Ichor Wellspring

• Lands (20)
• 17 Mountain
• 3 Sulfur Falls

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When working off that build, I realized both that the all-in plan is much weaker without Kuldotha Rebirth, Ichor Wellspring, and Gitaxian Probe and that for any all-in edition that were going to work, Burn at the Stake would just be a better choice—in part because of all the creatures we’d want entering the battlefield on the same turn we’d try to win. Thus, I decided to go a route with more solid card choices that worked well and synergistically with other parts of the deck rather than solely as part of the combo win condition.

Izzet Support Group

Guttersnipe feels like a combo card because it doesn’t attack and block in a normal creature-combat fashion, but a pure combo kill wouldn’t lean on a supplementary 2-damage-dealing Goblin. But with the deck full of instants and sorceries, Guttersnipe’s damage will help reduce the number of necessary Dragons while also opening up opportunities to just win with tokens and instant-and-sorcery triggers. Of course, the Goblin makes a fine Dragon in its own right when properly shifted.

Finally, Gore-House Chainwalkers was the last addition to the deck and perhaps most out of place. There might be a better or more interesting card for this spot, but this Rakdos visitor will help put pressure on the opponent and serve as the backbone of a potential damage-to-win plan short of an overload. Also, that +1/+1 unleash counter is quite interesting, as it means we’ll have a 5/5 Dragon while it’s shifted. Also, with a Dragonshift on defense, we have a 5/5 Chainwalker with flying and without unleash, meaning it can be a very surprising blocker.

Dragonshift

Oh yeah, the deck has Dragonshift, too.

Dragon Defenders

For extra laughs—or whatever noise you make while crushing opponents with weird combinations of Magic: The Gathering cards—fuse the Dragonshift plan with the defender plan and Maze's End, as seen a few weeks back. Cut the infinity and add some Dragonshift, and we have this:

"Dragon’s Maze"

• Creatures (24)
• 4 Axebane Guardian
• 4 Basilica Guards
• 4 Doorkeeper
• 4 Fog Bank
• 4 Gatecreeper Vine
• 4 Nivix Cyclops

• Spells (10)
• 2 Dragonshift
• 2 Sphinx's Revelation
• 4 Urban Evolution
• 2 Detention Sphere

• Lands (26)
• 1 Boros Guildgate
• 1 Dimir Guildgate
• 1 Golgari Guildgate
• 1 Orzhov Guildgate
• 1 Rakdos Guildgate
• 2 Azorius Guildgate
• 3 Selesnya Guildgate
• 4 Gruul Guildgate
• 4 Izzet Guildgate
• 4 Maze's End
• 4 Simic Guildgate

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Until End of Turn

Combat’s over, the opponent is dead, and we’re in the cleanup step. That means we’re not Dragons anymore, but hey—I hope you held on to that +1/+1 counter.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com