One of my first memories of being a fan of Magic coverage was of Worlds back in 2007, where a Dragonstorm Deck put up a dominating finish and showed how powerful combo decks could be when they had a density of fast mana card selection, and multiple backup plans. Today, I wanted to take a look at a new Dragonstorm deck that features some of the spirit of this build. Let’s take a look at Makigano Motohiro’s build of Dragonstorm for Modern:

Marvel Dragonstorm ? Modern | Makigano Motohiro, 5-0 Modern League

• Creatures (9)
• 1 Atarka, World Render
• 1 Dragonlord Atarka
• 1 Dragonlord Dromoka
• 1 Dragonlord Kolaghan
• 1 Dragonlord Ojutai
• 1 Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund
• 1 Nicol Bolas
• 2 Bogardan Hellkite

• Instants (4)
• 4 Thirst for Knowledge

• Sorceries (14)
• 1 Sins of the Past
• 2 Spelltwine
• 3 Faithless Looting
• 4 Attune with Aether
• 4 Dragonstorm

• Artifacts (12)
• 4 Aetherworks Marvel
• 4 Lotus Bloom
• 4 Woodweaver's Puzzleknot

• Lands (21)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Island
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Plains
• 1 Swamp
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 1 Temple Garden
• 3 Misty Rainforest
• 4 Aether Hub
• 4 Wooded Foothills

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
• 2 Stormbreath Dragon
• 1 Thunderbreak Regent
• 2 Vendilion Clique
• 2 Ancient Grudge
• 2 Foul-Tongue Invocation
• 1 Gifts Ungiven
• 3 Bring to Light
• 1 Unburial Rites

Buy This Deck

One of the strengths of this deck is how many powerful dragons have been printed in recent years, particularly at lower costs. It’s not unreasonable for you to just get to five or six mana and start casting cards like Ojutai or Thundermaw Hellkite, if you choose to play them.

One of the problems with this deck is that you have to stretch so far into disparate themes in order to put together a high enough density of ways to find and cast Dragonstorm. Your have energy cards combined with Lotus Bloom as well as looting effects and graveyard spells. That means that you can draw all the wrong combinations of pieces and your deck could just do nothing. Thirst for Knowledge goes a long way toward fixing this, since it can setup your graveyard spells while letting you get rid of excess copies of Aetherworks Marvel, Lotus Bloom, or Woodweaver's Puzzleknot.

This is a deck that does a lot of really interesting things, particular given the sideboard options available. Those let you transform into a weird Bring to Light or Gifts Ungiven deck featuring limited amounts of interaction and silver bullets. It’s possible that there’s even a version that brings that kind of craziness into the maindeck. If you’re looking for a wacky combo deck with a lot of angles, it’s hard to get much crazier than this.