I've just wrapped two Top 10 columns focused on the great Dragons of Magic: the Gathering. I skipped over Elder Dragons, as Abe Sargent covered them last May and there haven't been any added to the format since then. My top 10 list of non-Legendary Dragons in Commander will be up on this site later this week, followed by my list of Top 10 Legendary Dragons. Both were a lot of fun to write, and felt like a good way to usher in the Year of the Dragon.

You might think I'd have gotten Dragons out of my system, but you would be wrong.

Today's column, which will come out before those other Top 10 lists, is a look at ten ways I'm planning to have Dragons be part of my experience of Commander this coming year. This is essentially a column about 10 Dragon themed ways that I'm going to keep my spirits up between now and Q3's Bloomburrow release, which really looks to be a lot of fun.

Reprint sets, Universes Beyond sets, and weirdly themed sets like Murders at Karlov Manor and Outlaws of Thunder Junction are going to take up the first half of 2024. I want to find interesting deckbuilding challenges to get me through months of Fallout, murder mysteries, Clue, and Wild West themed releases. I hope you are all eagerly looking forward to some of the sets planned for this year, but I'm yearning for more good old-fashioned Medieval Fantasy themed Magic sets.

Fortunately, I've got some ideas for how to keep my creative juices flowing. These are all at least vaguely Dragon-themed and they are ideas that I may or may not carry through with. Some revolve around decks I already own and some are about converting existing decks into new decks.

My 10 Plans for a Draconic New Year

These are my plans and while I hope they might spark some ideas for you, I don't pretend that they make any sense for anyone in the world but me. One of my favorite things about Commander is the process of rebuilding, reinventing and rediscovering decks. I'll take a deck apart after just a handful of games if it isn't bringing me joy, and I'll rip one apart if it "did its thing" but the game or the win wasn't particularly fulfilling. I'll even take a deck behind the woodshed if it's lost a few games and I no longer have any hope or excitement when I think about playing it.

It's not at all fair to the deck, but I only have so many slots in my deck collection. If I'm going to have the fun of brewing up a new one, I've got to take apart an old one. Sometimes the deck that gets taken apart is one I really love, but I don't like having decks that never get played. I could just keep adding to the deck collection, but sleeves, deckboxes and cards cost money, and part of the fun of this hobby is that sometimes I have to make hard decisions. I took apart my Narset, Enlightened Master deck this past year, and that had been my "baby" for many years. It was the right thing to do, even though it was still a joy to play.

If you read my upcoming Top 10 Dragon Commanders column, you may wonder why certain Dragons are missing from it. I'm setting a few of my favorites aside for this column to make space for other great choices in that later top 10 list. Some of these cards may really belong in that column, but I want to avoid putting any of my choices on both lists.

With that out of the way, let's take a look at my plans for The Year of the Dragon.

10. Build Commander Masters Portrait Decks

I decided when Commander Masters came out to pick up some of the "Portrait" variant cards. I was looking for a way to start migrating some of my decks away from my hand-painted alters as I was going to gather a bunch of those up and donate them to charity next Fall. I took apart Thalisse, Reverent Medium, which had a dozen or so cards altered to look like characters from Nightmare Before Christmas.

I don't yet own a portrait version of The Ur-Dragon but I've already built Talrand, Sky Summoner, Tatyova, Benthic Druid, and Slimefoot, the Stowaway. I converted my Imodane, the Pyrohammer deck into Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might, but have plans to convert that into Neheb, the Eternal soon. I've also got plans for a Selvala, Heart of the Wilds deck and an Azami, Lady of Scrolls deck. If I can get through all of that, there's a decent chance I'll be ordering The Ur-Dragon because at that point I might as well.

The funny thing is that I didn't love the portrait variants at first, but those card designs grew on me and I decided it might be fun to build around a bunch of them. So far I've enjoyed the experience. Winning a game with Talrand, Sky Summoner the other week was a hoot, and I genuinely enjoy the idea of breathing new life into some of these older cards.

9. Play Elminster More

Back in the day I built Wasitora, Nekoru Queen, in no small part because she made the most adorable creature tokens. The problem was that she didn't make enough of them, and it made me a little sad to not get to see them on my battlefield very often.

In 2022 along came Elminster, who makes some pretty darn adorable creature tokens on his own. Not only can he make Faerie Dragon tokens, but he can make an awful lot of them. I really enjoy my Elminster deck, and I don't play it as often as I should. It can go wide but it's probably the most fun when I get a half dozen of them on the field and I polymorph them all and get to find out what other creatures I can flop into. It's fun. It can be game-breaking. I should play it more often.

My Elminster deck has evolved a bit but you can read my first column about Elminster here.

8. Build Beledros Witherbloom

I've run through a bunch of Golgari decks in recent years. At one point I had a Baba Lysaga, Night Witch deck which I think I converted to Grismold, the Dreadsower. This past year Grismold got converted into The Mycotyrant, which got turned into my current Slimefoot the Stowaway deck. It's one of those portrait variant cards so I'm unlikely to take it apart real soon, but I've been thinking about yet another Dragon deck.

Beledros Witherbloom is a deckbuilding itch that I never adequately scratched. This Golgari Elder Dragon costs a whopping 7 mana for a meager 4/4 body, but it has some interesting abilities. You get a steady stream of Black and Green Pest creature tokens that can gain you life, and he lets you pay 10 life to untap all of your lands. It's a powerful ability that I'd love to find ways to use and abuse this year. I might even keep that Slimefoot deck together and sacrifice another deck for the project.

7. Play Shadrix Silverquill

Speaking of weird Strixhaven Elder Dragons, I've been waxing poetic a lot lately about Shadrix Silverquill.

Shadrix Silverquill is a really flexible, really interesting commander that brings some unique things to a game. You can read more about my take on Shadrix Silverquill here.

6. Build Old Gnawbone

Every now and then the process of writing a column inspires me to build a deck. That happens a lot, actually, and this past week for the first time I took a serious look at Old Gnawbone. That Green Dragon is busted and I think this year I need to take it out for a spin.

Her high casting cost is a challenge, but the opportunity to make insane piles of Treasure tokens is hard to resist. I don't yet know if I'll go with old fashioned Green stompy creatures or something different, like making a deck of flyers in the single worst color in Magic for flyers. Evasive, unblockable creatures might be a fun theme, but whatever I do, it will probably be the kind of deck that can get wildly out of control if things go well.

5. Work on Ramos, Dragon Engine

When you have an older deck that hasn't been updated in years, it can be deflating when you take it out for a game and it falls flat. My Ramos, Dragon Engine deck isn't terrible, but it also hasn't gotten wildly out of control in a long time.

Commander as a format has been slowly speeding up, year after year, and it might be time to take a good look at my old Ramos list. It's OK to have a casual deck that is lower in power and doesn't win as many games. It's actually important to be able to pick a deck that is right for the power level of the table you're playing at. Ramos was once one of my favorite decks and before I'm tempted to take it out behind the aforementioned woodshed, I should really see if there are ways to inject some new energy and fun into the build.

Writing about Ramos was part of the process where I realized that I could probably become a real, bona fide, columnist writing about Commander. Ramos, Dragon Engine has a special place in my deck collection and I owe it to myself to work on it and try to breathe new life into the list.

4. Play Lathliss, Dragon Queen

If Ramos is a deck that hasn't been working, Lathliss, Dragon Queen is a deck that nearly always does its thing. Its "thing" may be incredibly simple, but that's OK. Sometimes it's nice to just shuffle up a simple, straightforward deck and just play some Commander.

Just because Lathliss has a simple game plan doesn't mean it isn't powerful. Filling the skies with as many Red Dragons as humanly possible and swinging them at your tablemates until they are all dead works really well. Lathliss makes it easy and you're never going to give yourself a popsicle headache trying to figure out what to do next. You pay lands, rocks and Dragons and you hope for the best. It's a lot of fun and it works more often than you'd think it would.

I wrote about Lathliss way back in 2018. My deck has evolved a bit since then, but you can read that column here.

3. Build Scion of the Ur-Dragon

If there's a Dragon deck this side of Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm, that makes you have to think, Scion of the Ur-Dragon might be it. I covered Scion in my Top 10 Legendary Dragons column, and thinking about everything you can do with it got me thinking about building it.

I'm not as interested in building around the Moltensteel Dragon / Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon interaction as I am interested in exploring the potential of using Scion to enable other combos. If I can make Scion of the Ur-Dragon into the Dragon half of any two or three card combo and I can draw into or tutor up the other half of the combo, I expect this should be a pretty fun high-powered build. I don't expect to be breaking into cEDH but I'm really curious as to how much nonsense I'll be able to get up to.

I'm even thinking about making a nontoken copy of Scion and launching into a Hellkite Charger / Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient attack. It's fun to think about everything I might be able to do with Scion, and it's convoluted enough that I probably won't even feel that bad for doing nasty things to my tablemates.

2. Play Vadrik Dragonstorm

If I've got a favorite deck now that Narset is no longer in my collection, it's probably Vadrik, Astral Archmage. It's rare to brew up something that feels fun, powerful, and somewhat unique. Narset, Enlightened Master was fun and powerful, but she wasn't mine. She was a fairly standard Narset infinite turns and combat steps deck that was a blast to play but never felt even slightly unique.

My Vadrik deck was built to storm off and play Dragonstorm to launch into a table-killing avalanche of Dragons. Putting every Dragon in my deck onto the table works really well when you start off with Lathliss, Scourge of Valkas and Terror of the Peaks. The deck feels incredibly explosive and if Dragonstorm is somehow not available I've been able to nail down the win with a backup wincon of Niv-Mizzet combo.

When I play a deck and it overperforms, I tend to shy away from it. That doesn't mean I don't love playing the deck, but I also don't want to pubstomp and it can be hard to find the right table for certain high-powered decks that don't really have what it takes to play at a real cEDH table. That doesn't mean I shouldn't play the deck. I just need to keep the enjoyment of my tablemates in mind and pick something else if they don't seem like they want to deal with what Vadrik can bring to the game. That's true of any deck, not just your favorite deck or your best deck.

I wrote about Vadrik when he came out back in 2021 and you can read that column here.

1. Surprise Myself with a New Dragon Deck

If you think I'm out of ideas, you might be right, but I also hope to surprise myself with a new Dragon deck this year. There were five Elder Dragons in the Strixhaven set and I could see myself taking apart my Zirda, the Dawnwaker deck to build Velomachus Lorehold.

I could easily imagine taking apart my Sigarda, Host of Herons deck to build either Dragonlord Dromoka or Dromoka, the Eternal. Dragonlord Ojutai and Ojutai, Soul of Winter are also options and I could even see building Kokusho, the Evening Star or Bladewing the Risen.

It's even possible that a new Dragon will show up in the first half of 2024 that will catch my eye. I wouldn't put it past Wizards of the coast to find a way to shoehorn a Dragon into their Wild West set. Maybe we'll find out that it was Niv-Mizzet in the pantry with the lead pipe when we play that Clue themed expansion set that's coming out this Spring. At this point anything is possible!

Final Thoughts

My snarkiness about the Universes Beyond sets is unlikely to subside anytime soon, but in truth I do want you to enjoy whatever Magic sets you want to play this year. I'll do the same, and my paths might even take me to a murder mystery dinner party or the Wild West. I'll probably skip Fallout and Assassin's Creed, but you never know. I might download those video games and get myself all worked up over Rad counters or whatever Assassin's Creed trinkets we're going to be playing with this year.

I've shared my own plans on how I'm going to try to celebrate the Year of the Dragon. It officially goes from February 10, 2024 to January 28, 2025 and then we'll have 12 years before it happens again. If you've ever thought about adding a Dragon deck to your collection, this might be the perfect time.

I usually don't go quite as deep into my personal deckbuilding as I did today, but I hope I got you thinking about your own experience of Commander. Whether you're excited about the new sets coming out or you're struggling to find a reason to build your next deck, you should know that we all go through times where we have to work a little harder to find that spark of joy in our favorite hobby.

I think my plan about focusing on Dragons will probably work, but you can rest assured that I'll be brewing up decks around new cards in the weeks and months to come. The problem solving and creativity that goes into brewing a new deck, even if that deck is built around some weird card that I'm never going to play in paper, is what keeps me going.

I look forward to sharing that spark with you every Monday in 2024. Don't forget to check back on this site for those upcoming top 10 lists, which should go up later this week.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you next Monday!