Two things have been confirmed about our return to Tarkir: Clans and Dragons. Clans give us access to specific color combinations (which will likely include some Legendary Creatures in those colors!) and, if things go like they did last time, Clan-specific keywords. That's all fun and great and whatever. Let's talk Dragons.

We're nearly certain to see some new ones this time around. And there are some really obvious ways to build a Dragon deck. I feel like they fall into two basic camps:

1. The Mono-Red version. This includes a Red Legendary at the helm (someone like Lathliss, Dragon Queen), plus a number of enablers (Crucible of Fire, Dragonlord Servant) and a boat load of Dragons. Flood the sky, attack like crazy, and burn your opponents to ash.
2. The five-color version. The Ur-Dragon is likely the boss here, but there are a few other options. Either way, this runs the best of the best - great ramp, great card draw, great removal, and the strongest Dragons Magic has to offer. You'll still probably flood the sky, but it'll be with a rainbow rather than just fire.

Both of these are great! The first one is fairly linear in construction (and a great deck for following my Top 5 Deck-building Tips), and the second one almost always begins with a precon, though it needn't.

Those of you who follow my writing, though, know I tend to try to do things that are a little different. So, I thought it'd be fun to take these weeks leading up to our return to the land of Dragons looking at some Dragon decks which don't fit those two normal molds. With any luck, they'll offer some inspiration for how you can do something a little different from normal and fit some of the new designs we get into a shell!

Let's start with a Mono-Red option, but let's see if we can work it a little... unusually.

Nine mana is a lot! Especially for a 6/6 with Flying when we can often get better stats than that for a lot less mana. But we get a lot for our mana here, and we're going to be able to use it.

The first is that fabulous mini-wheel effect we get for ourselves. We cast Herigast and we can Exile what we're holding to draw three new cards. Even with decent ramp, it's very likely by the time we're putting this guy out there, it'll gain us cards.

Then we get to the real meat of this. In addition to Emerge (the ability that lets us sacrifice a Creature and apply its mana value to the Emerge cost, casting our Commander for a lot cheaper), Herigast gives everything else Emerge. This lets us do a pseudo-Birthing Pod thing, where we sacrifice something and get something bigger for a discount, then just kind of... keep doing it. Let's take a look.

Herigast, Erupting Nullkite | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Herigast, Erupting Nullkite

• Creatures (22)
• 1 Atsushi, the Blazing Sky
• 1 Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest
• 1 Ganax, Astral Hunter
• 1 Jaded Sell-Sword
• 1 Knollspine Dragon
• 1 Lathliss, Dragon Queen
• 1 Nesting Dragon
• 1 Opportunistic Dragon
• 1 Patron of the Arts
• 1 Phyrexian Dragon Engine
• 1 Red Dragon
• 1 Ryusei, the Falling Star
• 1 Scourge of Valkas
• 1 Skyline Despot
• 1 Spawn of Thraxes
• 1 Stirring Bard
• 1 Swashbuckler Extraordinaire
• 1 Terror of the Peaks
• 1 Themberchaud
• 1 Thundermaw Hellkite
• 1 Vengeful Ancestor
• 1 Verix Bladewing

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 1 Sarkhan, Dragonsoul
• 1 Sarkhan, Fireblood
• 1 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
• 1 Sarkhan the Masterless

• Instants (6)
• 1 Breath Weapon
• 1 Draconic Roar
• 1 Dragon's Fire
• 1 Sarkhan's Rage
• 1 Sarkhan's Triumph
• 1 Spit Flame

• Sorceries (3)
• 1 Bathe in Dragonfire
• 1 Draconic Intervention
• 1 Sarkhan's Dragonfire

• Enchantments (7)
• 1 Crucible of Fire
• 1 Dragon Cultist
• 1 Dragon Roost
• 1 Dragon Tempest
• 1 Loot Dispute
• 1 The Elder Dragon War
• 1 There and Back Again

• Artifacts (16)
• 1 Bonder's Ornament
• 1 Carnelian Orb of Dragonkind
• 1 Dragon's Hoard
• 1 Eye of Ojer Taq
• 1 Glittering Stockpile
• 1 Heraldic Banner
• 1 Illuminated Folio
• 1 Infiltration Lens
• 1 Loreseeker's Stone
• 1 Mimic Vat
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Mind's Eye
• 1 Orb of Dragonkind
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Vanquisher's Banner

• Battles (1)
• 1 Invasion of Tarkir // Defiant Thundermaw

• Lands (40)
• 25 Mountain
• 1 War Room
• 1 Amonkhet Raceway
• 1 Arena of Glory
• 1 Avishkar Raceway
• 1 Bonders' Enclave
• 1 Demolition Field
• 1 Hanweir Battlements
• 1 Muraganda Raceway
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Path of Ancestry
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Scavenger Grounds
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Urza's Cave
• 1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

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In any Dragon deck, mana will almost always be an issue. Of course we have 40 Lands, most of which are Basic Mountains (though we do get some fun additions from Aetherdrift, like Amonkhet Raceway). We've also got a number of mana rocks intended to get us up to nine, just in case we need to cast Herigast without Emerge. Some of them are obvious, like Sol Ring, but we're missing a few normal additions (no Arcane Signet or Commander's Sphere) because we don't desperately need the color. Instead, we have some great ones which help us specifically, like Heraldic Banner (power boost to most of our Dragons), Dragon's Hoard (extra Cards), and Glittering Stockpile, which most of the time will just give us Red but could save us in a pinch. Of course, Carnelian Orb of Dragonkind is here, granting Haste to all our Dragons.

To draw, Skullclamp seemed like a solid choice. Normally we stick that in decks that make a bunch of little tokens, but in this case, we can pay and attach it to the thing we're about to Sacrifice for Emerge, drawing a bonus card for our trouble. Illuminated Folio and Mind's Eye are both old-school; those used to be in a lot of decks, but they're often considered too slow. Here, though, they'll be great, leveraging our mana for more cards. Sarkhan's Dragonfire is a really slow, expensive Lightning Bolt, but we end up with the best card from our top five for our trouble. Vanquisher's Banner and Bonder's Ornament also let us keep cards flowing.

Including our Commander, we have 23 Creatures in this deck, and every single one is a Dragon. That's probably how we'll win - we're going to attack with those Dragons. They tend to hit fairly hard and for the most part are evasive, though some of them are funky. Patron of the Arts is a weird little 3/1 Dragon but it leaves behind some Treasure when it appears or dies. Phyrexian Dragon Engine is a little 2/2 with Double Strike. Jaded Sell-Sword is another cute non-Flying Dragon. Otherwise, though, they're mostly big and airborne, and should do a decent job of terrifying your opponents.

Most of our removal is damage-based, thanks to being in Red. Breath Weapon, for example, should clear out random tokens and such. Dragon's Fire is sometimes Lightning Strike, sometimes much better. Spit Flame is super fun, since we'll be able to buy it back all the time.

We have a number of support cards, just like the traditional Mono-Red Dragon Kindred deck. Crucible of Fire is here, as is Dragon Cultist, Dragon Tempest, Loot Dispute, and There and Back Again. Draconic Intervention will often only be for three or four, but still, that's a decent board wipe which won't hit any of our stuff. Because so many of our things care about Entering or Dying, we're also running Mimic Vat, which can catch something we sacrifice and generate copies (which can then be sacrificed, because the Vat makes a copy of the card, including Mana Value!).

We also have four Sarkhan Planeswalkers here, each of which has its own set of abilities. Very often, I put 'walkers in my deck just to distract the table - they tend to think the whole point is to ultimate the 'walker, so they focus on it and take resources away from killing me to kill it. That's exactly what we want - let them worry about Sarkhan, Fireblood's ultimate of making four Dragons while we sit back and do our thing.

But the big key here is every Dragon we're running has an Enters or Dies ability. The idea here is to treat the Dragons like we would a Birthing Pod deck, churning through their abilities for cheap and landing newer, bigger Dragons. Let's imagine a turn where you have Herigast and Patron of the Arts on the 'field and eight mana available.

You sacrifice Patron of the Arts, making a Treasure token and casting Atsushi, the Blazing Sky for Red (you use the Treasure for this, so you still have eight mana available). Then you sacrifice Atsushi making three more Treasure tokens and casting Nesting Dragon for (again, using a Treasure. Now we have eight mana from Lands and two from Treasures available). We drop our Mountain for turn (nine and two), making the Dragon Egg, then sacrifice the Nesting Dragon to cast Lathliss, Dragon Queen for {R} (nine and one). With our remaining 10 mana, we cast Terror of the Peaks (making a token off Lathliss, which does five damage off Terror), then cast Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest, dealing five damage (off Terror) and making another token (off Lathliss, which then does another five damage off Terror). We end the turn with 32 Flying power on board having done 15 damage. Not bad.

Of course, a turn like that would be unusual, but turns like it won't be. There will be fun interactions and great uses of Emerge throughout the game, and each time you play this deck it will work differently.

The other fun thing is how well it will adapt to new Dragons! As spoilers come out or you open packs, pretty much any Red Dragon with an Enters ability will slot right in. I spent some time thinking about the mana curve (that's why we're running the 3- and 4-mana Dragons with fewer abilities and less power), but as long as you have a decent mix, the deck should function well.

I'm more excited about returning to Tarkir than I have been about a set in a long time. How about you? Do you like the Dragons and wedges? What are you hoping will be included?

Thanks for reading.