By Guo Heng

The clock struck twelve midnight. The sound of hundreds of Dragons of Tarkir booster packs being cracked rippled through the room as players began to open the contents of their clan packs. The first wave of Tarkir dragons have arrived. You join the throngs of Magic players around the world in being the first to get a taste of Dragons of Tarkir. 

As you open you Ojutai clan pack, you were mildly stoked that your seeded booster rare is Ojutai’s Command. Not exactly an expensive rare nor the Elder Dragon you were looking to use as a Commander, but at least its playable in your sealed pool. 

You pop open your first Dragons of Tarkir pack. Obscuring Aether. To the bulk stack. Second pack. Dragonlord’s Perogative. Not exactly a money card, but it may be playable in your pool. Third pack. Volcanic Vision. Dammit, is this going to be another sealed pool with not a single money card? You began to wonder if you should have just saved your money to buy singles instead. 

Of course you would not open money cards. The odds are always against you when you are opening packs. If they are not, everybody would be cracking packs instead of buying singles. You berate yourself for that lapse in judgement. Oh well, at least you are supporting your local game store. 

As you crack your fourth and last Dragons of Tarkir booster pack, you decided to slowly reveal the card on the rare slot. You slide the card to unveil its top left corner. It’s a gold card. Could it be another Command?

You slide it a little further to reveal the mana pips. Blue and white. Could it be another Ojutai’s Commande? Or perhaps a Pristine Skywise, who would be sweet in your Ojutai deck. You take out the card. 

Bam. It’s this bad girl:

You are overjoyed. It looks like you would not only make back your prerelease entry fee, but you have a good chance at taking down the prerelease too, having opened one of the best bombs in the set. 

The question that pops into your head right now is this: Do you keep your Narset Transcendent after the prerelease, or do you trade her off at the next available opportunity?

What to Do With My Narset Transcendent?

A question that inadvertently pop up the week after a prerelease is “Do I keep the chase mythic planeswalker I opened at my prerelease?”

I wrote this piece as an answer to the question that would undoubtedly arise regarding Narset Transcendent, currently the most expensive card in Dragons of Tarkir at $42. However, the content that follows would also apply for whatever chase card you pop this weekend that you think are overpriced and would like to get rid of.

First off, congratulations if you are one of the few lucky prereleasers to open a Narset Transcendent. If you are planning to play with her frequently over the next month or so, it would not hurt to just keep that copy for your own use. Look at your prerelease fortune as having saved you some cash off your quest to acquire the Narsets you need for your deck.

Personally, I fall under this camp. I am looking forward to get back into control and there are a couple of brews I am keen building for a PPTQ next week: William Jensen’s Narset Control or Shaheen Soorani’s Esper brew, which I would probably end up building. Sweet as Jensen’s build look, I am not willing to splash for four Narset Transcendents on release weekend. Plus Soorani’s deck runs Dragonlord Ojutai as a finisher, a card I am really bullish on.

However if you do not plan on playing with her right now, the best thing to do is to trade her off as soon as possible. While the planeswalker tax may not be as ubiquitous as before, Narset Transcendent does not have the makings of Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, who after nearly two months, is still $5 – $7 more than his preorder price.

Narset is undoubtedly a powerhouse in Standard, but multicolored planeswalkers have a lower theoretical ceiling compared with their single-colored counterparts. Call it the multicolored ceiling, Magic Finance’s variant of the glass ceiling.

Narset’s situational, build-around-me abilities do her price no justice as well. They limit her potential homes in all formats and as an extension her price.

Those factors combined convinced me that Narset is overpriced right now at $42 and if you have no intentions of running decks that would want to play her, it may be best to cash out on her inflated value.

So what cards are good pick-ups to trade your Narset Transcendent into?

Khans of Tarkir Fetchlands

Flooded Strand: $14

Polluted Delta: $14

Windswept Heath: $11

Wooded Foothills: $10

Bloodstained Mire: $9

We have hit peak supply for Khans of Tarkir. In a week’s time, the supply of Khans of Tarkir would grind to a trickle. I can’t say for sure if we are at the price bottom for the the Khans fetches as the Return to Ravnice shocklands bottomed out only at May and the Theros temples during July and AugustThe difference of a few months could also be attributed to the different draft structures of the sets.

However, the fetchlands should be pretty damn close after their dip in the middle of February.

If you have yet to complete your playsets of fetchlands, there are not many things better to trade your overpriced Narset Transcendent into than helping you complete your playsets of fetches.

If you are looking for fetches as long-term investments, the appreciation you stand to gain from the fetches, especially the blue ones, far outweigh that of Narset Transcendent.

Seeing that we are at the peak supply of Khans of Tarkir, what other Khans of Tarkir cards are worth picking up with your Narset Transcendent?

Foil Non-planeswalker Narset

Since the release of Khans of Tarkir, Narset, Enlightened Master quickly rose among the ranks of the Khans to become one of the most popular commander (mirroring her rise to prominence among Ojutai’s clan in the new timeline. Vorthos alert).

It’s easy to see why: in a format that revels in resolving grand spells with prohibitively high mana cost, the possibilities are endless for a card that allows you to play spells without paying for them. It’s even better when you can play up to four of them.

Taking extra turns is one of the most popular thing to do with Narset. The Beacon of Tomorrows spike last November was attributed to Narset’s popularity. Narset also cheats in planeswalkers, which mean players could jam in all the best white, blue or red planeswalkers, including the new kid dragon planeswalker on the block, Ugin. Taking extra turns and manifesting a board of planeswalkers at the same time is one of the most fun thing to do in Commander, for the Narset player at least. Personally, I prefer to Long-term Plans for an Omniscience with my Narset, Enlightened Master trigger on the stack.

Narset has also been gaining traction in the Duel Commander scene.

Foil Narset, Enlightened Master is only $12 at the moment. With her popularity as a commander, foils at $12 would not be a bad investment. It definitely has more room to appreciate compared with Narset Planeswalker at $42.

Speaking of Khans…

Foil Anafenza, the Foremost

Now this is a more controversial pick. $14 seems steep for foil Anafenza, the Foremost. But I think she has a lot of potential to grow for the following reasons.

Anafenza is an immensely popular leader in Tiny Leaders. The majority of Abzan decks run Anafenzas their leader. Her +1/+1 counter has a wide range of synergies, and her second ability hoses a myriad of other popular leaders like Alesha, Who Smiles at Death and Grenzo, Dungeon Warden (running Anafenza against them felt close to cheating. True story).

On top of her popularity in Tiny Leaders, Anafenza is also the most played aggro commander in Duel Commander.

On the other hand, since Birthing Pod got the axe in Modern, Anafenza had all but disappeared from the Modern scene. Nevertheless, Tiny Leaders and Duel Commander demand should be sufficient to boost her price beyond her current $14. While she would not hit the $60s heights of foil Zur the Enchanter (whose foil price continued on a gradual hike even after Zur was banned in Duel Commander) as the supply of Khans of Tarkir is substantially higher than Coldsnap’s, it would not be hard to imagine foil Anafenza to hit at least $30 in the long run, especially when she has higher demand than Zur.

Foils Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, the most popular control commander for Duel Commander on top of being a popular fun police casual commander spiked up to $75 before he was reprinted in Modern Masters.

$14 is a safe entry point for foil Anafenza, the Foremost as her foil price is likely to be remain around that through her life in Standard, buoyed by tremendous casual demand.

Foil Dragonlords

Courtesy of the seeded prerelease packs, there will be plenty of players opening foil Dragonlords during the prerelease. As of writing, foil Dragonlord prices have yet to settle. Major retailers either do not stock them yet, or have sold out of them and eBay winning bids ranged from $10 to $20 per Dragonlord.

With the exception of Dragonlord Kolaghan (and I may even be wrong about foil Kolaghans), I would be happy to trade my $42 Narset Transcendent for a couple of foil Dragonlords.

I do not know if that exchange would yield profit in the short-term, foils of Dragonlords who does not see Standard play within the month may even drop in price when more Dragons of Tarkir hit the market. However, Narset Transcendent’s short and long-term trajectory are very likely to be downwards and even though foils of the Dragonlords-not-played-in-Standard may tank in the short run, you can bet they would be spike in the long run driven by casual and Commander demand, as I’ve advocated in my analysis of the Dragonlords. After all, they are the only foil Elder Dragons besides the From the Vaults: Dragons Nicol Bolas.

Finally, you reach for your single Fate Reforged pack, still giddy from ripping that Narset Transcendent. You have already covered your prerelease entry cost and ‘made a profit’. It doesn’t matter what you get in your last pack. 

You tear the Fate Reforged pack open with abandon. Straight to the rare slot, no slow reveal this time. 

It’s a foil Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. 

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By Guo Heng

Dragons. Elder Dragons. Dragonlords. 

Dragons of Tarkir is a Timmy’s and Vorthos’ dream come true. The definitive dragon set, Dragons of Tarkir contains the highest number of dragons we have ever seen in a Magic set and by extension also the highest as-fan of dragons.

And as if that was not enough, we were spoiled with the return of the Elder Dragon subtype, one of the most iconic creature type in Magic. They were the progenitor of the Commander format, and they were integral characters in early Magic lore. Well, modern Magic lore as well, if you consider Nicol Bolas an Elder Dragon even after his planeswalker spark ignited.

The excitement surrounding the introduction of five new Elder Dragons was palpable.  Elder Dragon was a rather rare creature type, appearing in only five cards throughout the twenty-two years of Magic’s existence. There are more Gods than there are Elder Dragons in the Magic universe.

Let’s take a look at the new Elder Dragons through our Magic finance monocles. Starting alphabetically we get have our largest of Dragonlords:

Atarka, Dragonlord Hodor

StarCityGames Presale: $9.99

ChannelFireball Presale: $6.99

TCG-Mid: $5.88

As you can see, I am not particularly fond of Dragonlord Atarka.

Standard: Dragonlord Atarka is the Magic dictionary’s definition of clunky. Yes, her enter the battlefield trigger will take down at least one creature in the current metagame of Siege Rhino, Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Polukranos, World Eater and Stormbreath Dragon. She may even take down a relatively fresh-on-the-board Elspeth, Sun’s Champion, or a ticked down Ugin, the Spirit Dragon.

However, if you are going to tap for seven, you would want more than just a two-for-one. Think Hornet Queen, who usually nets you at least a three-for-one, or at least turn the tides and stabilize your board. Dragonlord Atarka could stabilize your board by taking out a creature and being a 8/8 blocking body, but her board presence is less resilient than Hornet Queen.

Dragonlord Atarka is one mana cheaper than the iconic Bogardan Hellkite but her enter the battlefield trigger does not target players. Which is a shame, because you could not finish off opponents merely resolving a Dragonlord Atarka.

It waits to be seen if Dragonlord Atarka will see play side-by-side with Frontier Siege as Cedric Philips proposed in his article spoiling Dragonlord Atarka.

Modern: Don’t even think about it. You can’t even Dragonstorm Dragonlord Atarka for the win. Not that Dragonstorm is a deck in Modern anyway.

Commander: Her rare version was more interesting, as /r/EDH noted. I concur with them; I would rather have a seven mana commander that renders my dragons double strike (Thundermaw Hellkite for ten).

Plus, Dragonlord Atarka’s enter the battlefield trigger of five damage is nothing to fete about in Commander games.

Verdict: Dragonlord Atarka is what happens when you attach a pair of wings on Hodor. Or give him a can of Red Bull. Dragonlord Atarka’s price would drop from her preorder price, and experience a slow rise through the years buoyed by casual demand.

Predictions:

1 month: $5 – $6

Peak supply at the release of Magic Origins (3 months, 3 weeks): Under $5

Long-term: $5 – $10

Invest in foils if you are looking to make some long-term dough off Dragonlord Atarka.

Dromoka, Dragonlord-in-Chief

StarCityGames Presale: $7.99

ChannelFireball Presale: $6.99

TCG-Mid: $6.25

When a card was spoiled in the Mothership’s Command Tower column, it probably makes a good commander.

Standard: Dragonlord Dromoka may be the second most playable Dragonlord in Standard. An uncounterable 5/7 flying lifelinker for six mana is already playable as the top-of-the-curve for GW decks or even Abzan decks.

The Grand Abolisher clause is mere icing on the cake. I imagine the opponent can’t cast spells during your turn ability to be not too useful when you hit six mana most of the time except maybe that time where your control opponent has no answer to Dragonlord Dromoka for a few turns.

Her 5/7 flying body walls the majority of popular creatures in the metagame, and with lifelink, she could turn the tide when you are behind in board position.

True to her clan’s roots, Dragonlord Dromoka is the epitome of grindy. Imagine Siege Rhino and Dragonlord Dromoka in the same deck.

Modern: Dragonlord Dromoka has the makings to cut it in Modern, but her six casting cost makes her chance slim. A resolved Dromoka could block Tarmogoyfs, Tasigurs and Lingering Souls all day long and turn the tide of grindy midrange mirrors with her lifelink, but tapping six mana for a threat vulnerable to Path to Exile is setting yourself up for tempo loss.

If she does see play in Modern, she would probably be a one-off in the sideboard of midrange decks or Zoo variants.

Commander: Here’s where Dragonlord Dromoka truly shines. Dragonlord Dromoka excels both as a commander and one of the 99.

The two most popular GW commanders as of writing are Captain Sisay and Karametra, God of Harvests. Being legendary herself, I have a feeling Dragonlord Dromoka would be an auto-include in Captain Sisay decks as a tutorable hatebear hatedragon with upsides.

I do not play a lot of multiplayer Commander, so I can’t tell if Dragonlord Dromoka is better than Karametra as a multiplayer commander. To be fair, they both cater to different builds.

Besides ramping, Karametra decks could abuse the top of their decks with Karametra’s ability to trigger a shuffle. A Dragonlord Dromoka deck have me giddy at the thought of resolving an uncontested Genesis Wave or any of the GW hard lock combos available.

Verdict: I am excited about Dragonlord Dromoka both financially and as a player. She has cross-format potential and could be one of the Dragonlords to end up with double-digit figures in the medium to long-term.

Predictions:

1 month: $8 – $10, up to $15 if she sees significant play during Pro Tour Dragons of Tarkir.

Peak supply at the release of Magic Origins (3 months, 3 weeks): $10

Long-term: $15 – $20

I’m keeping an eye for foils of Dragonlord Dromoka when foils drop to slightly above $10. The current price of foil Narset, Enlightened Master, one of the most popular commanders from Khans of Tarkir which will be opened  more than Dragons of Tarkir (and presumably redeemed more as well, because foil fetches) is $10 – $12 right now, and with Dragons of Tarkir opened less, I would imagine foil Dragonlord Dromoka to drop to a slightly higher price at peak supply.

Kolaghan, Dragonlord Disappointment

StarCityGames Presale: $3.99

ChannelFireball Presale: $3.99

TCG-Mid: $3.93

The cheapest of the Dragonlord in preorder price, Dragonlord Kolaghan was the most difficult to evaluate using theorycrafting. She could be decent, or totally crap.

At best, Dragonlord Kolaghan turns a few cards in your opponent’s hand into dead cards, that is until they draw into their Hero’s Downfall, Murderous Cut, Chained to the Rocks or Valorous Stance.

Without testing her out in real life, it is difficult to evaluate how triggerable her target opponent loses ten life clause is. Theorycrafting alone says that it would not be that often: it’s not often that control opponents resolve the same planeswalker twice, and the creature clause works best against creature-centric decks, but you don’t really want a six drop against those decks. Plus with the prevalence of Delve, you opponents could easily Delve away creatures in their graveyard to fuel a Murderous Cut.

Standard: RB is not a color combination that sees much play in the current Standard meta and unless an aggressive RB shell becomes a thing in Dragons of Tarkir Standard, I am pessimistic about the financial future of Dragonlord Kolaghan.

Plus, she gets picked out by fellow Dragonlord Atarka.

Modern: Nope.

Commander: Dragonlord Kolaghan seems to be designed with Commander in mind.

Verdict: I am tempted to put down Dragonlord Kolaghan as a bulk mythic. The only format she has any chance to make a break in is Standard and even if she does, she would unlikely be a four-of.

Predictions:

1 month: $2

Peak supply at the release of Magic Origins (3 months, 3 weeks): $2

Long-term: $5, on the merit of being an Elder Dragon.

I am not even sure if foil Dragonlord Kolaghan are good investments. Maybe if you can get them at bulk price, but she is an Elder Dragon and kitchen table demand may prevent her foil prices from descending to bulk.

Ojutai, Dragonlord Playable

StarCityGames Presale: $5.99

ChannelFireball Presale: $5.99

TCG-Mid: $4.95

Dragonlord Ojutai has my vote as the most undervalued Dragonlord. True to his clan’s reverence of cunning, Dragonlord Ojutai is one of those cards that would probably turn to be much better than he looks once we get to play with him in our decks.

You can jam out Dragonlord Ojutai on turn five with impunity, knowing well he would survive to the next turn barring an End Hostilities or Crux of Fate. You can untap the turn after and have removals or protection up as you ride Dragonlord Ojutai to victory.

In the right build, I doubt it would be hard to connect once or twice with Dragonlord Ojutai to reap his value.

Standard: There are so many archetypes Dragonlord Ojutai could find a home in. He looks to be a good curve-topper for Jeskai burn where you could protect him with counterspells and clear the skies with burn to ride Ojutai’s value train.

Dragonlord Ojutai has synergy with Jeskai Ascendancy, and while the interaction looks cute, I am wary of discounting any Jeskai Ascendancy interactions as Jeskai Ascendancy has proven over and over again during Khans of Tarkir Standard that it is a powerful value engine that fits in a swath of Jeskai builds.

On a side note, you also get Vorthos points for the irony of running Dragonlord Ojutai in a Jeskai deck.

Dragonlord Ojutai could also find a perch as a finisher in UW or Esper Control decks. His mini-Brainstorm Ponder trigger digs you more gas, answers or Dig Through Time.

I do not know if Mono-Blue Devotion would be as viable as hyped once we enter Dragons of Tarkir Standard, but it would not be far-fetched to imagine Mono-Blue Devotion splashing white for Valorous Stance, Ephara, God of the Polis or Dragonlord Ojutai.

If needs be, Dragonlord Ojutai is able to trade with Siege Rhino and Tasigur, the Golden Fang. He is also the only Dragonlord immune to Dragonlord Silumgar’s charisma, which may be useful in control mirrors. Speaking of which, control mirrors may be a matchup where Dragonlord Ojutai excels as a pesky threat.

Unfortunately, Dragonlord Ojutai does not fare well against Stormbreath Dragon and if there is a factor that represses the playability of Dragonlord Ojutai, it would be the pervasiveness of Strombreath Dragon.

If that happens, I wouldn’t fret. Remember when Thundermaw Hellkite was cheap because he was unplayable in a Vapor Snag and Snapcaster Mage Standard?

Modern: Dragonlord Ojutai’s five casting cost puts him at the fringe of Modern playability. UW is not really a thing in Modern and I imagine Jeskai builds would rather run Keranos, God of Storms, or just plain Stormbreath Dragon over Dragonlord Ojutai.

Commander: Dragonlord Ojutai has the potential to be a control or stax commander, being relatively cheap and having in-built protection which plays well with the veritable selection of enchantments and artifacts that grants vigilance.

It would also be easier to trigger Dragonlord Ojutai’s ability in a multiplayer game.

Verdict: I think Dragonlord Ojutai is tied with Dragonlord Silumgar as the most playable Dragonlord. He is chock-full of potential in Standard and is Commander-playable.

Predictions:

1 month: $10 – $15

Peak supply at the release of Magic Origins (3 months, 3 weeks): $10 – $15

Long-term: It depends on how popular Dragonlord Ojutai is as a commander and if anyone breaks him in Modern (what are the odds? Low in my opinion).

Dragonlord Ojutai is one of the few cards I am preordering. It baffles me that he is preordering for less than Dragonlord Atarka.

Silumgar, Dragonlord Charisma

StarCityGames Presale: $7.99

ChannelFireball Presale: $6.99

TCG-Mid: $5.12

Reid Duke ran a good piece analysing Dragonlord Silumgar last week (his verdict: 7/10). I wrote extensively about Dragonlord Silumgar in my previous article (mainly praises). Without rehashing too much from both articles, Dragonlord Silumgar is easily the best of the Dragonlords.

Standard: UB and Sultai Control are obvious homes for Dragonlord Silumgar. Whether he belongs in the sideboard or mainboard is more contentious. I am of opinion Dragonlord Silumgar is good enough to see mainboard play.

Dragonlord Silumgar stabilizes the board  with his Charisma trigger and five toughness which allows him to wall Siege Rhinos, Tasigurs and Stormbreath Dragon all day long. Not that they usually come back for a second encounter seeing that Dragonlord Silumgar has deathtouch.

Due to his very convenient three power, Dragonlord Silumgar is the only Dragonlord who does not die to Elspeth, Sun’s Champion.

Dragonlord Silumgar excels in control match ups as well, being an answer to opposing planes walkers that would steal the game if your opponent does not have an answer to Dragonlord Silumgar in return. Or conveniently ultimating your opponent’s planeswalker, but I imagine players would be playing around that possibility shall he becomes a mainstay of the Standard meta.

Modern: Sower of Temptation barely sees play in Modern and Sower only costs four. I doubt Dragonlord Silumgar would cut it in the current Modern meta where Path to Exile is so pervasive.

Perhaps if the meta shifts towards less Path of Exile, Dragonlord Silumgar may have a chance, but I highly doubt it. Six mana is prohibitive unless it’s  a Primeval Titan.

Commander: In my previous article, I mentioned that Dragonlord Silumgar seems to be designed with Standard rather than Commander in mind, but better Commander minds think Dragonlord Silumgar may have a spot as one of the 99. I can’t argue with that.

Come to think of it, stealing big creatures or opposing Jace, the Mind Sculptor, would be quite fun in Commander. Dragonlord Silumgar is just not cut as a Commander himself.

Verdict: Dragonlord Silumgar, alongside with Dragonlord Ojutai would probably be the two Elder Dragons that see the most play in Standard. 7/10 in Reid Duke’s assessment is a pretty good, and I would venture to say Dragonlord Silumgar looks to be pushed in design.

Prediction:

1 month: $10 – $12

Peak supply at the release of Magic Origins (3 months, 3 weeks): $10 – $12

Long-term: Dragonlord Silumgar will probably maintain a mid $10s price tag through the majority of his Standard life.

Dragonlord Silumgar is a fine preorder if you want to play with him. While I think Dragonlord Silumgar has potential in Standard, I doubt he would be a four-of like Whisperwood Elemental, which is currently $14.

Also, a Dragonlord who wears the highly playable Tasigur as a necklace can’t be bad right?

All Hail the Dragonlords

Regardless of how much play they see in Standard, the Dragonlords will be casual hits. Kitchen table demand may actually be a strong driver for the price of the Dragonlords  due to their immense casual appeal.

Casual demand is the invisible hand (I am totally misusing Adam Smith’s term) that drove up the price of angels and dragons and I would imagine the Elder Dragons to be the primary chase cards among the kitchen table crowd.

The kitchen table is where Dragonlord Atarka and Dragonlord Kolaghan have the best chance of being a hit. Dragonlord Atarka is the embodiment of the ultimate Timmy dragon. Kitchen table players are more likely than spikes to attempt abusing Dragonlord Kolaghan’s very situational ten damage clause.

It baffles me as to why Dragonlord Ojutai is one of the cheapest Dragonlord to preorder. Perhaps his prowess on the board would be better than what he looks like on the computer screen.

If the price trajectory of the foil Avacyn Restored angels – Avacyn, Gisela, Sigarda and Bruna –  are anything to go by, Dragonlord foils would make for good long-term investments due to their immense casual and Commander appeal.

Of course, the month or two after release is not the best time to amass your foil Elder Dragons. Wait for Dragons of Tarkir to hit peak supply when Magic Origins is release when Dragons of Tarkir would have been drafted for nearly four months and redemption is in full swing.

In my previous article I mentioned that Dragons of Tarkir – Fate Reforged would ‘grind to a halt when Modern Masters 2015 is released’. I may be wrong about that.

While Wizards is ramping up the print run for Modern Masters 2015, the price of one Modern Masters 2015 pack would be three times the price of a Dragons of Tarkir booster pack. I don’t imagine the casual crowd to switch over to just drafting Modern Masters 2015 for the month between the release of Modern Masters 2015 and Magic Origins.

I suspect the supply of Dragons of Tarkir card would still trickle into the market after the release of Modern Masters 2015 and would only grind to a halt except for redemption once Magic Origin comes out.

Comments are more than welcomed, drop one below or catch me on Twitter at @theguoheng. Till then, may the Dragonlords be with you.

Edit: An earlier version of this article cited that Dragonlord Silumgar does not die to Valorous Stance, which is not true. A reader pointed out that Valorous stance actually checks the creature’s toughness, not power.

My bad. Running foreign language copies of Valorous Stance in my deck, I’ve always read it as “Destroy target Siege Rhino or Tasigur, the Golden Fang”.

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By Guo Heng Chin

It has begun. The first set of spoilers for the dragoniest dragon-filled set started spilling out of the Dragon Tempest yesterday, as we traveled back to the present, changed timeline in a plane of Tarkir ruled by dragons rather than khans.  I have not been so excited for a new set before; it’s a whole set filled with dragons! It’s like a manifestation of my wildest dreams when I first started Magic as a 10-year old kid.

I imagine quite a number of players around the world share the same sentiment as me in regards to Dragons of Tarkir. After all, dragon is by far the most popular creature type among the player base:

Players like Dragons. Really like Dragons. No, really, really like Dragons. They are by far the most popular creature type we do. It’s the reason, for example, we made the first From the Vault box set with a dragon theme.

– Mark Rosewater

Cute or Playable?

Dragons has always been the domain of casuals and Timmies. Since Brian Kibler made top four of Pro Tour Chicago in 2000 with Rith, the Awakener and earned the venerable title of Dragonmaster, dragons have rarely graced the top tables, let alone tournament tables. We saw incessant caws, but no dragons.

It all changed with Thundermaw Hellkite in 2012.

“My goal was to create a Dragon that was to Dragons what Baneslayer Angel was to Angels. I wanted the set to have a Dragon that set the standard for a badass Dragon.”

– Doug Beyer, Lead Designer, Magic 2013

And a badass dragon Thundermaw Hellkite was. After an initial lull during its first six months of existence in a meta highly saturated with Snapcaster Mage and Vapor Snag, Thundermaw became a Standard staple ran in playsets across numerous archetypes and its price peaked at $40  for a couple of months.

Stormbreath Dragon came next. Being under Thundermaw ‘s shadow wasn’t easy, but Stormbreath Dragon’s initially cool reception thawed off as it proved to be the curve-topper of choice for decks with access to red. After all, a 4/4 hasty flier with protection from white and an option to transform into a gigantic 7/7 can’t be too bad. Stormbreath even saw occasional Modern play.

All Hail the Dragonlord

Will Dragons of Tarkir bring us more playable dragons? The design vision extolled in Mark Gottlieb’s article certainly suggested so.

It has been less than 24 hours since the Dragons of Tarkir hype engine started revving, and we already have a very playable dragon in the form of a wizened Silumgar:

Playable casting cost? Certainly. Playable stats? Let see, Dragonlord Silumgar dodges Elspeth, Sun’s Champion (again. Sorry Ms. Tirel), he dodges Stoke the Flames and wins a head on collision with Stormbreath Dragon and Wingmate Roc. Heck, Silumgar could even chump Siege Rhino and Tasigur, the Golden Fang (Vorthoses would know) all day long. Well, devour is probably a more suitable word here, seeing that Dragonlord Silumgar has deathtouch. Playability checked.

Awesome enter the battlefield ability? Dragonlord Silumgar is Sower of Temptation on steroids. If you can’t kill em’ steal em’. Sleazy Silumgar allegedly has the charisma to persuade even the game-breaking Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Elspeth, Sun’s Champion to his cause.

Dragonlord Silumgar is the ideal card to break open those grindy midrange and control mirrors. He is not just an answer, but also a formidable threat by himself and I imagine plenty of games would be decided by a topdecked Dragonlord Silumgar stealing an opposing planeswalker.

There is a good probability that Dragonlord Silumgar will see play in Standard. For a card chock full of value, he seems to be a perfect fit in Sultai Lord Gerard Fabiano’s Sultai Control that aims to outgrind opponents in value.

Silumgar’s flexible enter-the-battlefield trigger and his stats that enable him to take down most popular standard fatties could warrant a couple of mainboard slots, but I don’t imagine seeing decks go for the full playset due to Silumgar’s high casting cost. But I could be wrong.  Silumgar makes for a pretty good sideboard card as well, both in UB Control and Sultai variants.

While I am confident about Dragonlord Silumgar’s Standard playability, I am doubtful about his place in Modern. Six casting cost is just much of an investment, especially with all the Path to Exile flying around. That is assuming that Gerard Fabiano does not break it. After all he just took down StarCityGame’s first Modern Open at Baltimore with Sultai. Can that man ever lose with Sultai?

The Price of a Dragonlord

Dragonlord Silumgar is currently going for $9 on ChannelFireball, $10 on StarCityGames and closing at $11 – 13 on eBay.  Which seem a bit on the cheap side to me. Dragons of Tarkir will be drafted for just eight weeks before Modern Masters 2015 hit the shelves on 22 May.

For the purpose of calculation, let’s assume that Dragons of Tarkir-Fate Reforged draft would grind to a halt when Modern Masters 2015 is released. That means we would have opened eight weeks worth of Dragons of Tarkir and 17 weeks worth of Fate Reforged. As we would be drafting two Dragons of Tarkir with a single Fate Reforged booster, the number of Dragons of Tarkir booster opened would be about the same as the number of Fate Reforged boosters over their draft span.

Another thing to note is that while the one in eight packs probability of opening a mythic is the same in both large and small sets due to the different size of print sheets used in large and small sets, the probability of opening a particular mythic is lower in a large set. Small sets contain ten mythics while large sets have fifteen.

That means Dragonlord Silumgar, and other mythics in Dragons of Tarkir would be opened less than Fate Reforged mythics! Because we are opening two packs of Dragons for each pack of Fate Reforged, it is easy to mistakenly assume that the supply of a particular Dragons of Tarkir mythic would be higher than those in Fate Reforged.

Watch out for the price of any playable Dragonlords.

If Dragonlord Silumgar turns out to be Standard playable as predicted, a $15 tag would not be too far-fetched.

Another reason $10 seems too cheap for Dragonlord Silumgar is the fact that he is an Elder Dragon creature type. There have only been five creatures in existence that are of the hallowed Elder Dragon creature type; there are more Gods than there are Elder Dragons. Dragonlord Silumgar being an Elder Dragon is a big flavor-win and I do imagine that  fact alone would exude a higher than usual level of appeal to the casual crowd. And we all know never to underestimate casual demand as a price driver.

On the other side of the casual demand coin, I struggle to picture Dragonlord  Silumgar as a popular Commander. I can see him as on of the 99, but his ability does not feel abusable in Commander.

Too bad Elder Dragon Highlander evolved into Commander years ago. Imagine the price of foil Dragonlord Silumgars if we were still playing according to the original Elder Dragon Highlander rules where you can only use Elder Dragons as your ‘commander’.

Being an Elder Dragon does have one gameplay downside; my Cavern of Souls will no longer be a catchall in my dragon-centric Commander deck.

I was wrong about that. Reader kraeuterbuddha pointed out Mark Rosewater’s answer on the topic: turns out that Elder Dragons are considered both ‘Elder’ and ‘Dragon’ when it comes to their creature type. Thanks kraeuterbuddha!

Thundermaw… I mean Thunderbreak

The English card image is not up yet as of writing. The text is as follows, courtesy of MythicSpoiler.com:

Thunderbreak Regent

2RR

Creature – Dragon

FlyingWhenever a dragon you control becomes the target of a spell or ability your opponent controls, Thunderbreak Regent deals 3 damage to that player.

Let’s see, it’s a  4/4 flying body at playable casting cost that trades up with Stormbreath and Wingmate Roc (3/4 seems to be a lousy spot to be in a dragon-filled Tarkir) and trades on parity with Butcher of the Horde, which is harder to cast.

Thunderbreak Regent also Lightning Bolts opponents who attempts to remove it out of creature combat or mass removal. It is a threat the deals damage, regardless whether it is answered or not, the kind of cards that puts your opponents in a catch-22 situation.

I am no red mage, but Thunderbreak Regent sounds like a pretty good card in aggressive red decks as a follow up to Flamewake Phoenix, not to mention it triggers Flamewake’s ferocious too. Thunderbreak would be a superior choice over Ashcloud Phoenix for decks aiming to achieve the highest damage possible in the least number of turns.

Thunderbreak Regent’s price trajectory would probably be similar to that of Flamewake Phoenix: starting at around$4-$5 before settling down at $2-$3.

The Hype Train Continues…

The next couple of weeks look to be a two week-long Christmas as Wizards drop a dragon or two down our chimney, when the clock strikes 0800 PST every day.

Will the enemy-colored fetchlands finally see a reprint in Dragons of Tarkir? Certain passages from last week’s A Tarkir of Dragons hints at enemy-colored fetches in Dragons of Tarkir as it is an alternate timeline. Are we going to see enemy-colored fetches with a reversed version of the flavor texts in the ally-colored fetches as suggested by Redditor /u/daberu?

The revelation that Dragons of Tarkir will feature ally-colored pairs certainly hurt the probability of seeing enemy-colored fetches in Dragons of Tarkir. The initial idea was to have enemy-colored clans, but it was changed to create a fresh draft experience; would there be a chance that the fetchlands remained?

I also agree that from a financial perspective, there is little excuse for Wizards to include magic sales-bullet in a set that is pretty much going to fly off the shelves. Because dragons.

I guess we would find out in a week or two if we would be cracking Scalding Tarns and Verdant Catacombs in Dragons of Tarkir Standard.

Also, are we going to get a Narset planeswalker? And another Sarkhan!

With the pervasiveness of Dragons in the set, is it too much to hope for a tiny, three casting cost legendary dragon? I bet there were plenty of other players besides me whose wildest (Magic) fantasy was a dragon set and that came true. Is it too wistful to wish for a legendary dragon that I can use as my leader in Tiny Leaders? Would the Dragonlords not need to groom their royal successors from a tender young age?

In the mean time, we shall wait and see what the dragon tempest brings us daily. I for one welcome our Dragonlords.

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By Guo Heng Chin

Four weeks ago I wrote an article about Tiny Leaders potentially being the next big thing in Magic. What I did not expect was Tiny Leaders to undergo a sort of Cambrian explosion within just a couple of weeks.

In Malaysia, we had our first Tiny Leaders tournament at the end of January, with a whooping 15 players in attendance.

For the past few weeks, whenever I popped by a local game store, I would overhear players discussing Tiny Leaders or witness Tiny Leaders games taking place. And I have visited at least three different stores catering to starkly different player bases.

It was a pleasant surprise to see some of the local PPTQ grinders getting into Tiny Leaders too. The format’s appeal to the casuals and spikes alike is important for the Tiny Leaders to be considered sufficiently differentiated from existing formats so as to warrant a niche of its own. Without a defined niche, Wizards would have little reason to adopt Tiny Leaders as an official format, together with annual product releases.

Elsewhere around the world, the enthusiasm for Tiny Leaders hit fever pitch. The first streamed Tiny Leaders league began three weeks ago, organised by /u/SaintOmerville and his playgroup at Maryland (Check them out at /r/TinyLeaders, they stream weekly).

Dark Sphere, the awesome LGS I used to frequent when I lived in London ran their first Tiny Leaders FNM a few days ago, to a pretty good turnout of 14 players. Kyle Lopez, the guest on last week’s Brainstorm Brewery pointed out that the Tiny Leaders craze hit his local game store as well.

Those were just drop in the wave of Tiny Leaders hype that swept through the Magic community in the past month and I am sure there are plenty of other Tiny Leaders stories elsewhere.

However, nothing could be a better testament of Tiny Leaders’ growing popularity than a feature article dedicated to the format on the Mothership by the inimitable Gavin Verhey.

Last but not least, we saw a spate of Tiny Leaders foils spiking over the previous month. Foils of Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Varolz, the Scar-Striped and Ambassador Laquatus, three popular tier one leaders, doubled in price together with cards like Leonin Shikari which are playable in both Commander and Tiny Leaders.

An Empirical Opinion on the Format

Last weekend, I participated in my second Tiny Leaders tournament. It was an eight-person tournament, featuring a diverse field comprising of the following leaders:

• 1 x Anafenza, the Foremost (me)
• 2 x Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
• 1 x Merieke Ri Berit
• 1 x Ezuri, Renegade Leader
• 1 x Grenzo, Dungeon Master
• 1 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
• 1 x Selvala, Explorer Returned

I went 2-0, beating Ezuri and Grenzo and splitting with Alesha in the finals to ensure that we both secure a 5x multiplier for our entry fee in store credit as prize. Anafenza turned out to be an unintentionally good meta call as two out of the three decks I faced (Grenzo and Alesha) relied on graveyard mechanics and Anafenza’s second, less conspicuous ability swung a wrecking ball to their game plan.

I’ve used the store credit to buy myself a playmat tube for the Ugin Game Day playmat I won last weekend and two Tiny Leaders foils which I would discuss in a bit.

A few thoughts about the format after two tournaments (hooray):

Removals are efficient but sparse in Tiny Leaders due to the singleton restriction. In most of the games I’ve played, my Dark Confidant stuck around longer than he would have in other formats. His value in the format was comparatively higher than in say, Modern, due to his reduced fragility. I suspect there are quite a number of other cards which could be evaluated differently for the same reason.

The limited removals mean that creature-based combos are easier to pull off. I shall get to this in a bit.

The second observation was that the threat of Geist of Saint Traft and Ezuri, Renegade Leader was overblown. Well, at least from the small sample size of matches I have played against them.

Geist lacks removals and the deck struggle with board control. I’ve found it relatively easy to brute force your way through their counterspells and removals and develop a board position that makes it difficult for Geist to attack or race them. Tempo is the key to beat Geist.

Ezuri Elfball is explosive but well-timed removal of their key components is a big set back for their game plan. Ezuri’s ability to regenerate another elven brethren was not as incessant as I thought it to be, but that could be attributed to the fact that Abzan removals – Swords to Plowshares, Smother and Dismember from the mainboard; Zealous Persecution, Drown in Sorrow and Golgari Charm from the sideboard – leave no room for regeneration shenanigans.

The health of the format is a controversial topic. There are segments of players complaining about the lack of diversity among tier one leaders and the repetitiveness of the format.

From my very statistically significant sample size of 7 matches across two tournaments, I’ve found the diversity to be pretty good. As the optimal build for the majority of the leaders have yet to be discovered, perhaps it is too early to claim that there are too few tier one decks. I suspect there are plenty of yet-to-be-recognised tier one decks out there, and the current playes

Yes, Tiny Leaders feels repetitive if you compare it to Commander, but it is no more repetitive than Modern in my opinion. Which is a good thing as Tiny Leaders was designed to be a duel format. I would consider Tiny Leaders to be less repetitive compared with Standard, offering a similar level of game play diversity as Modern (I have not played enough Legacy to compare Tiny Leaders with it).

This Week’s Tiny Pick Ups

Initially my plan for the Tiny Leaders finance series was to make my way down the color pie with every installment of the series à la the undervalued Commander foils series I embarked on a while back.

That schedule may work for undervalued Commander foils as cards in the format have largely settled in price with Commander being a relatively mature format. Tiny Leaders is a young format and as such brewers and players are still in the process of exploring new deckbuilding spaces and discovering new interactions.

Doing a series of article about undervalued Tiny Leaders cards by color would probably miss the boat on a lot of…well, undervalued cards which I imagine would spike once word about a new tech gets out.

So I am going to give this series a bit of a shake-up; I will be looking a few cards in each installment, but they would be in no particular order. I will write about undervalued cards as I encounter them; it would do you readers no justice if I were to hold back on discussing a card I think is sorely undervalued  just to follow a self-imposed order. We’re going to introduce a little bit of anarchy.

The first two cards we are looking at today are the two foils I’ve bought with the store credit I won at last weekend’s Tiny Leaders tournament. They are two cheap foils (the playmat tube took up the bulk of the store credit) with plenty of room to grow.

I am convinced that Cartel Aristocrat foils at $2 are good pick ups. She functions as an engine in a couple of Tiny Leaders archetypes: she is a powerful gear in the Athreos, God of Passage machine and is a token factory in Teysa, Orzhov Scion decks.

Cartel Aristocrat is also one of the best engine for the Melira combo, which was by far the most impressive aspect of my Anafenza deck and is a combo that I am confident should be a mainstay in the format.

I threw in the Melira combo when I was constructing my Anafenza list as a plan B to give the deck an extra angle of attack (decks that attack on multiple axes are good, said a certain Gerry Thompson). It was supposed to be the gear I shift to after I’ve exhausted my opponent’s removals, or when my opponent inadvertently taps out.

Turns out not only did I leaned on the combo more than I had imagined, I won half my games with it. While Anafenza has access to some of the best removals in the format, those removals are often 1-for-1 removals and the struggles if an opponent gets too far ahead in tempo or overwhelms the board with cheap minions. Anafenza is a fair deck after all.

The Melira combo stole me countless games where I was not supposed to win. It won me a game when I was staring down an unblockable Geist of Saint Traft with lethal the next turn. It won me a couple of game ones against Ezuri when I do not have access to board wipes. Gaining infinite life was the only way I can snatch the upper hand against Alesha’s recurring horde.

I eschewed Blood Artist as an enabler to close the game once I’ve achieved the infinite loop as he is a bad card outside the combo. Plus, with a Green Sun’s Zenith in my deck, I would not deck out.

In the end, Anafenza – my list at least – played out like Patrick Dickmann’s Tempo Twin. Neither plan of efficient beatdown or Melira combo is the main plan; it depends on the matchup and my opening hand. Although when I find myself losing grip of the board, I often switch to defensive mode and attempt to stall the game until I rip the combo pieces. With three tutors, it was relatively easy to assemble the pieces.

Another reason the Melira plan worked better than I had envisioned during deckbuilding was the fact that removals are limited in Tiny Leaders, as I’ve mentioned.

The combo complements Anafenza strategies because every creature in the deck demands an answer or it would out-card advantage the opponent out of the game, grow out of proportion with Anafenza’s  ability and Gavony Township, or even by itself as Scavenging Ooze scavenges, Knight of the Reliquary with every fetchland and Varolz, the Scar-Striped… well scavenges. Even a lowly 1/1 spirit token could evolve into a formidable threat if left untouched.

My opponents’ removals were often spread thin and it was relatively easy to execute the Melira combo.

That was a bit of a detour. Back to Cartel Aristocrat. She is a perfect fit in Anafenza decks sporting the Melira combo because she is both hard to remove and useful regardless of the combo. The deck has so many ways to plop on +1/+1 counters on Cartel Aristocrat she often becomes a formidable threat by herself.

Besides Varolz and noncreature options like Recurring Nightmare, Viscera Seer is the only other free-to-activate sac outlet in Abzan colors but Seer is a waste of space without the combo as we already have access to plenty of library manipulation.

To sum it up, Cartel Aristocrat has the potential to be a staple in three Tiny Leaders archetypes, two of which are tier one archetypes. Foils at $2 are enticing, especially when the card is in no risk of reprint within the next few years.

The second foil I bought with my store credit was Anax and Cymede. Chaz Volpe from BoltSnapBolt mentioned a week ago that he picked up a few foil copies of Anax and Cymede and I thought that was a fantastic pick up.

Anax and Cymede is (or are? Grammar gets complicated when there are more than one person in a card but the creature type denotes a singular entity. I shall resort to ‘is’ here and consider Anax and Cymede so inseparable they form a single entity) reputedly a tier one leader and more importantly, looks to be a budget tier one leader. Foil copies could be found for a mere $1.50 and really only have room to grow as Theros supply dries up and Tiny Leaders demand kicks in.

While the majority of the elves in Ezuri Elfball are cheap, an optimal build requires Gaea’s Cradle and Glimpse of Nature and both will set you back by $200.

On the other hand, an optimal Anax and Cymede list could be assembled on a budget and there are multiple build options to choose from; either the hyper-aggressive swarm build, or the good stuffs build as the color grants access to some of the best removals and board wipes in the format and Blood Moon.

Speaking of board wipes, the next card we are going to look at is a Modern staple with Tiny Leaders application and foils are cheap right now.

Anger of the Gods was a Modern sideboard staple when Birthing Pod was legal, but has dipped in popularity since. Which is a good thing financially as it means that foil Anger of the Gods would not spike yet. The Modern meta is cyclical and there would be a time again when Anger of the Gods will once again be a sideboard staple.

In the mean time, Anger of the Gods is one of the best board wipes in Tiny Leaders. Its exile clause hoses popular graveyard-abusing leaders like Alesha and Varolz, while serving as an efficient answer to swarm decks (Anger of the Gods deals the most damage at three mana compared with other sweepers in the format).

Ironically, red is the control color in Tiny Leaders courtesy of the number of board wipes under four casting cost in the color (red has access to a plethora of X-casting cost board wipes). At $8, Anger of the Gods foils look like a surefire pick up.

#MtgoTinyLeaders

Though more shops are jumping on the Tiny Leaders bandwagon (at least in Kuala Lumpur and London), one of the major drawbacks of Tiny Leaders is that the format can’t be enjoyed on Magic Online.

Which is a shame because Tiny Leader also appeals to the demographic of players that would play Magic Online on a regular basis.

Plus Tiny Leaders is well-suited for Magic Online play, unlike Commander where playing online strips off the social camaraderie aspect of it (and Commander is a social game, isn’t it). Players would not lose any of the fun, nor have to suffer a compromised user interface playing Tiny Leaders online.

Thanks to Modern Masters and Vintage Masters, a lot of Tiny Leaders staples are much cheaper on Magic Online compared with their physical counterparts. Which makes it even more of a shame that we are not able to jam Tiny Leaders on Magic Online!

It is true that Commander was only made available on Magic Online after the release of the first official Commander products. That does not mean we have to wait until the format is officially picked up by Wizards before we can sling Tiny Leaders online.

The infrastructure is already present. All it requires is a the removal of Commander damage, reduction of the number of cards required in the mainboard to 49, decreasing the starting life to 25, adding a sideboard and tweaking the ban list a little. Having little technical knowledge, I would not claim to be privy the difficulty of implementing those changes, but one could reasonably assume that it would be less difficult than enabling Commander on Magic Online. The addition of a ten-card sideboard may be a complication as I believe your Commander resides in your sideboard in the current implementation of Commander on Magic Online.

Getting Magic Online to support Tiny Leaders would allow more players to get into the format, and enable competitive players to practice online. Magic Online support would be a huge driver for the growth of the format.

Wizards has a history of being responsive to the Magic community’s wishes, an extremely rare trait in a large corporation, and is one of the main reason why Magic is flourishing at the heights it is at today.

If you would like to see Tiny Leaders on Magic Online, do make your desire known to the various powers above at Wizards through social media. Most of the management at Wizards are highly engaged with the Magic community, especially on Twitter and anyone with a Twitter account could get in touch with them there.

Those I would recommend are Magic Online’s official account: @MagicOnline; Magic Online’s Director of Products, Worth Wolpert’s account: @mtgworth and possibly some the other directors that deal with paper Magic like Helene Bergeot, the Director of Global Organized Play: @HeleneBergeot and Aaron Forsythe, the Director of R & D: @mtgaaron to let them know that there are a lot of enthusiasm for Tiny Leaders.

Let’s start a little social media campaign. Use the hashtag #MtgoTinyLeaders so we all have one cohesive platform to push for Tiny Leaders on Magic Online.

Leave your comments below, or find me on Twitter @theguoheng.

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