For years, Wizards of the Coast had a habit of creating Dragon-themed sets that, in fact, didn't contain very many Dragons. The set symbol for Scourge was a Dragon skull, and the set contained bangers like Form of the Dragon and Dragonstorm, but the number of actual Dragons in the set was unimpressive given the heavy Dragon theme. Dragon's Maze has the word "Dragon" in its name, but contains no Dragons!

Thankfully, Magic's designers finally figured things out with sets like Dragons of Tarkir, which clearly had a significant Dragon presence. Now when we are promised Dragons in a set, Wizards of the Coast delivers in spades! These weren't just filler Dragons, either. They printed some heavy-hitting, Commander-worthy Dragons!

The History of Dragons in Magic

With that backdrop, what do we expect to see with Magic's next big expansion, Tarkir: Dragonstorm? For one, I'm expecting a ton of Dragons! At least, there had better be given the cards that depend on Dragons to function, such as Mox Jasper.

By now, I'm sure Wizards learned from their mistakes; a heavy population of new and exciting Dragon creatures are pretty much guaranteed in this new set.

Off the Beaten Path

The heavy Dragon theme in Tarkir: Dragonstorm is expected to be hugely popular amongst the casual crowd. Tribal Dragons is one of the most popular creature-based themes in Magic, with a multitude of eligible legendary Dragon creatures from which to choose a commander. Popular choices include The Ur-Dragon, Timat, and Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm.

While Dragons have historically been associated with Red, most popular options, including Magic's first cycle of legendary Dragon creatures all the way back in Legends, are multi-colored.

Arcades Sabboth and Chromium are especially tricky commanders to build with because they don't contain any Red in their color identity! That means, to build a robust Dragon tribal deck may require tapping into powerful Dragon creatures outside of its primary color. Fortunately, Wizards of the Coast has been printing viable non-Red Dragon options for decades now.

Let's look at some options.

White Dragons

According to Scryfall, there are exactly 20 White Dragons, though they include Elder Land Wurm, which was errata'd to be a Dragon after-the-fact (and isn't very good anyway).

What White Dragons are worth playing? You could play some of the new, flashy White Dragons like Timeless Dragon, a spinoff of the classic Eternal Dragon.

Both are difficult to eliminate permanently, while at the same time can help you fix your mana in the early game. Plainscycling means you can pitch these early on to fetch a key dual land to fix colors and ensure you hit your land drops. Then when you're ready, you can bring both of these back for more action!

Foundations brought us a new option in Ancestor Dragon, which provides a threatening 5/6 flying body along with life gain, another popular casual theme. While I think the new entry to the pool of White Dragons is interesting, I'd much prefer jamming Ancient Gold Dragon because of its impressive stats. Look at this thing!

A 7/10 flying creature?? You don't see those every day. Plus, upon connecting with an opponent, you get how many 1/1 flying creature tokens? A d20's worth?! Sure, you could technically roll 1 or 2 and need to connect a second time to have a major impact. For each of those low rolls, however, you'll also randomly roll an 18 and suddenly have that many more flying creatures on your board!

Ao, the Dawn Sky is a powerful White Dragon from Neon Dynasty. Sunscorch Regent fuels both a life gain theme and a +1/+1 counter theme. Who could forget the classic, Yosei, the Morning Star?

If you're looking for a throwback, check out Alabaster Dragon from Weatherlight and Exalted Dragon from Exodus for a couple classics.

Blue Dragons

Pivoting to Blue, there are 28 Dragons available to consider in your deck. While that's a larger pool to choose from than what White has to offer, I must say I'm relatively underwhelmed by much of the selection in this color. They're not completely terrible, but Belltoll Dragon and Blue Dragon just aren't doing it for me. Don't even get me started on Portal's Cloud Dragon.

What are the best considerations here? Ancient Silver Dragon seems pretty sweet as a significant draw engine assuming you can connect with an opponent (this whole cycle is quite powerful). Keiga, the Tide Star is also part of a cycle of powerful Dragons, and this one in particular gives you the ability to steal an opponent's creature upon dying.

Also part of a cycle, Kairi, the Swirling Sky is a powerful option for Blue Dragon decks. Even its base stats, six mana for a 6/6 flyer, is formidable as far as Blue creatures go.

If you want to impress your friends by including older, less familiar cards, consider one of my favorites: Mist Dragon.

Is this rare from Mirage as powerful as Blue's other options? Probably not. Magic's first all-Blue Dragon does bring with it two powerful benefits. First, while expensive at five mana, the ability to phase out on command is a great way to protect your Dragon from destruction spells. With enough mana held up, this creature can be difficult to deal with permanently. Second, I always find entertainment value from the creatures two 0 mana activated abilities. Wizards of the Coast has moved away from zero mana activated abilities that don't require tapping because you can theoretically stall out a game indefinitely with this creature. All you have to do is give it flying and remove flying in response to every spell and ability your opponents place on the stack, and you'll put everyone to sleep! Take that Earthquake and Hurricane!

Black Dragons

Black is relatively underrepresented in the Dragon space, with just 18 options to pick from. What Black lacks in quantity, however, it makes up with quality!

First and foremost, Black gets Skittles himself, Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon.

While this may be a better card to include in an Infect-themed deck, its powerful enough to make it into a Black Dragon-themed deck as well. It doesn't take many hits with Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon to randomly kill an opponent with poison!

Black also has bangers like Ancient Brass Dragon, Deathbringer Regent, and Junji, the Midnight Sky. Each of these creatures contain significant power and are worthy inclusions. There are also a couple difficult-to-deal-with-permanently Dragons such as Bone Dragon and Boneyard Scourge. Similar to some of the White Dragons, these two creatures can come back over and over again if not killed with some sort of exile effect.

In multiplayer play, Kokusho, the Evening Star can be a powerful Dragon to attack with.

Losing a Dragon isn't as painful when you're draining your opponents for five life each and gaining 15 in the process!

Lastly, there's the classic Mirage Black Dragon: Catacomb Dragon.

While it is relatively understatted based on modern-day metrics, this Dragon can be a nuisance to block in combat. I know it's not nearly as powerful as newer creatures with comparable casting costs, but David O'Connor's art for Catacomb Dragon is so amazing, it's almost worth playing the creature for that alone. I'd squeeze it in if I had a Dragon deck that leaned heavily on Black.

Green Dragons

Last but not least, let's take a quick look at some interesting Green Dragon options. There are technically 21 to pick from, though I'd hardly count Ambitious Dragonborn and Wandering Troubadour. I guess these creatures are like...cousins of Dragons or something. They don't even fly, for crying out loud!

Speaking of nonflying Dragons, Green's part of the Mirage cycle of Dragons also doesn't fly by default. It can fly, however, if its activation cost is played.

Green doesn't get very many flying creatures, so Canopy Dragon's abilities is consistent with Green's piece of the color pie. It's fair to give it trample instead, with the ability to fly by giving up trample in a pinch. This is probably the least exciting of this Dragon creature cycle.

To find worthy Green Dragons, we're going to have to look to more recent sets. For example, Ancient Bronze Dragon is far more exciting that allows you to place a ton of +1/+1 counters on up to two creatures once you connect with an opponent. Also, 7 mana for a 7/7 flyer? That's more like it! Old Gnawbone also carries similar stats and can make you Treasure Tokens galore if any creature of yours connects with an opponent.

Ramping mana and spreading out +1/+1 counters both seem like powerful strategies in Green, where these two Dragons can slot in nicely.

Other powerful Green Dragons include Jugan, the Rising Star (don't forget to also play Jugan Defends the Temple), Kura, the Boundless Sky, and the impressive 10/10 flyer, Earthquake Dragon. Sure, Earthquake Dragon technically costs 15 mana. In a Green Dragon deck, however, you can get its actual cost down a significant amount. Plus, you have the added benefit of bringing it back from your graveyard to your hand! It's not just Black and White that offers a Dragon with recursion.

Wrapping It Up

While Red contains the vast majority of Dragon creatures, there are still a handful to choose from in the other four colors. What's more, I focused only on mono-colored Dragons for this article--if you expand the search to include multicolored Dragons outside of Red, you'd find many more to choose from. Thanks to five-color Dragon cycles from Mirage, Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate, Champions of Kamigawa, and Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, you have plenty of monocolored, non-Red options to choose from.

Thus, when Tarkir: Dragonstorm finally comes out on April 11 and everyone starts to get excited about Dragons all over again, keep the non-Red options from this article in mind. From goofy throwbacks like Mist Dragon to modern-day bangers like Ancient Silver Dragon, there are plenty of options to fill out a Dragon deck even if you leave Red out of the picture.