Commander Deck Tech: Tiamat
Another new set, another new deck! Dungeons and Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms is finally here. I've officially had the opportunity to play in 2 pre-release events, as well as draft my way to mythic on MTG Arena. The set is very well rounded for limited play in both draft and sealed play. However, we want to use some of these sweet new cards in Commander!
In 2017 I opened the Draconic Domination Commander deck and played it as the pre-con for several months. It was well rounded and it won a lot vs. the other Commander 2017 pre-con decks. I eventually ended up modifying it by adding several dragons from Khans of Tarkir block which made it a bit better. Now even more time has gone by, and I've added to that same deck two or three more times. When I saw Tiamat spoiled I knew I would either have to add it in the deck, or make it a deck of its own. This deck is mainly a mish-mash of the Draconic Domination Deck, Strixhaven, and Dungeons and Dragons.
Looking at Tiamat we see a beautiful five-headed dragon that costs one of each color plus two colorless mana. It's not the most expensive dragon, but it is also not cheap. Once we are able to cast Tiamat we can see we get to tutor for five dragons. This is a very powerful ability that makes us want to make our dragons cheaper to cast. We need to be able to cast Tiamat faster than turn five. We also need to be able to dump our hand full of dragons once we get to tutor. The most crucial part of this deck is to have a good mana base, mana acceleration, and then just home run dragons till the game is over.
The new dragons: Old Gnawbone, Inferno of the Star Mounts, Ebondeath, Dracolich, Iymrith, Desert Doom, Icingdeath, Frost Tyrant, and Adult Gold Dragon.
The most powerful of the lot is Iymrith, Desert Doom. It has built in protection with the Ward ability, while also having a way to gain card advantage. I also like "This spell can't be countered" on Inferno of Star Mounts. The other four are great, but nothing too crazy. I also had considered putting in the uncommon dragons from AFR in the deck, but they just aren't as powerful. They do have their place, but that's mostly in limited and in collecting. The full-art versions of the uncommon dragons look amazing!
The almost new dragons: Scion of Draco, Velomachus Lorehold, Beledros Witherbloom, Amareth, the Lustrous, Tanazir Quandrix, Shadrix Silverquill, and Galazeth Prismari.
These are mainly the Strixhaven mythic dragons, but we also have a Modern Horizons 2 dragon in Scion of Draco. These are all cards that were on my radar to add to my Ur-Dragon list, but I haven't had the opportunity to cast many of them. They are fantastic targets for the Tiamat trigger, but use your whole deck of dragons as a toolbox for what you need.
Onto the mana acceleration: You want to run a full package of ramp cards. We also want to incorporate basic lands for new cards like Scion of Draco. I decided to run four ramp spells in: Rampant Growth, Farseek, Kodama's Reach, and Cultivate. You can run more than this, but I highly recommend running this many at least. Two other ramp spells I had considered running were Explosive Vegetation and Tempt with Discovery.
We also need to run "mana rocks" which are like ramp spells, but are usually artifacts. This deck runs six mana rocks in: Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Chromatic Lantern, Commander's Sphere, Dragon's Hoard, and Orb of Dragonkind. Chromatic Lantern is the best of the mix just because it allows you to fix your mana easier in this 5-color deck. Also Dragon's Hoard just really fits the flavor of a dragon deck, and has the bonus ability to draw some extra cards. The new mana rock is Orb of Dragonkind, even though you can only use it for dragon spells. It also has the extra sacrifice ability to dig through the top seven cards for a dragon.
We also have quite a few enchantments and other artifacts which either help with dragon bonuses, card advantage, or extra damage. I really like the flavor of Sarkhan's Unsealing and Sarkhan's Triumph which are great additions to the deck. I wanted to add a Sarkhan Planeswalker, but felt they weren't powerful enough. Being that Tiamat searches for dragon's and not Planeswalkers, I went ahead and left Planeswalkers out of the deck.
We have just a tiny bit of spot removal and wrath effects in: Dragon's Fire, Crux of Fate, Fortunate Few, Kindred Dominance, and the brutal Ruinous Ultimatum. Any of these could be switched out with other wrath effects or spot removal with the exception of Crux of Fate. It not only fits the theme of any dragon deck, but can also protect your dragon's while destroying everything else. Late game this can take you to a big advantage and hopefully sway the tides of any battle.
I'm anxious to play this deck to see all the different crazy dragon interactions. I'm sure it will need some tweaking, but overall this is a good start for play testing. If you are looking for an exciting mid-range 5-color deck I suggest giving Tiamat a Try!
