Tarkir Dragonstorm is the newest set coming to the Standard format and will release on April 11th. The set takes place on Tarkir and focuses on Dragons and the 5 multicolor Tarkir clans. This set is already looking to be incredibly exciting for Standard. Dragonstorm looks to be significantly more powerful than Aetherdrift and will likely shake-up the format. At the very least it will provide some cool new cards for tier-one decks, or create some new tier-two decks.
This article is not about the most powerful cards that will shake up the format. These cards are certainly powerful, but this list is my top 5 cards that have the coolest designs.
Songcrafter Mage
Songcrafter Mage is a callback to an old favorite and is both weaker and stronger than the og Snapcaster Mage. For 3 Temur mana the 3/2 Flash enters and gives an instant or sorcery in the yard harmonize. Harmonize is flashback but allows the caster to tap a creature and reduce the colorless cost by the power of the tapped creature. Songcrafter Mage will be best with instants and sorceries with a high colorless cost or additional cost. In Standard players will be enthused to cast Songcrafter mage and be able to flashback a Three Steps Ahead to both counter a spell and copy the songcrafter mage or draw two cards and discard one. In older formats Songcrafter will excel at flashing back Collected Company for a single green mana or recasting cards like Gifts Ungiven for a single blue mana. The card looks absolutely incredible and is an amazing design that scales well with format power and will be incredibly fun to play with.
Magmatic Hellkite
Magmatic Hellkite upon first impression seems a bit played out. It is a nonbasic land destruction spell that allows your opponent to fetch a basic on a powerful 4/5 flying body. However the important twist on this card is its final little inclusion. After your opponent grabs a basic, they must put a stun counter on that land. Putting a stun counter may seem like a relatively minute inclusion, but when considering how games play out in the current format that 1 fewer mana will be absolutely pivotal. Stopping your Domain opponent from hitting land 4 or 5 on time will give aggro decks the extra turn often needed to get under a Day of Judgement or Sunfall. Even for midrange decks this disruption will play a key role. It will force your domain or control opponent to dedicate more resources to staying a live pre-wrath leaving them more vulnerable to any threats deployed after the fact. Additionally, in open decklist tournaments knowing whether your Esper Pixie opponent has any basic lands could make this card a 4 mana 4/5 dragon that simply destroys a land on ETB.
Taigam, Master Opportunist
Taigam, Master Opportunist is awesome. In a format with Opt and Sleight of Hand or efficient disruption spells like Torch the Tower, Cut Down, and Duress, double spelling is not going to be very difficult. Where Taigam shines is not in simply getting an extra copy of your spell 4 turns down the road, rather he gives you a way to cheat your best cards out now. I envision this deck as a sort of Esper Taigam flicker deck looking to cantrip and cast cards with alternate casting costs for cheap. When casting Taigam followed up by an Overlord of the Mistmoors or Phyrexian Fleshgorger instead of getting an impending overlord or a 3/3 fleshgorger, those cards are suspended and the full power copies are put onto the stack. A 7/5 Lifelink, Menace, Ward - Pay 7 Life or a 6/6 Overlord are cast instead. Alongside a playset of Scrollshift this deck will be incredibly sweet.
Tersa Lightshatter
Tersa Lightshatter is exciting because not only is it powerful as a 3 mana 3/3 with haste that double loots on etb it has an attack trigger that effectively draws you a random card from your graveyard if you have threshold. This card just looks fun to play. It is proactive and good at all points in the game. It can dig you for the cards you need, apply pressure to your opponent and late game it can allow you to cast cards from your graveyard. It is a live draw whenever and will steal games from the jaws (or should I saw draws) or defeat.
Rot-Curse Rakshasa
Rot-Curse Rakshasa is almost an archetypical card for what I mean when I say “cool”. I think this card will be constructed playable but it is incredibly interesting to think about for many reasons. It has an aggressively stated body, two mana for a 5/5 trample is a lot, but a major drawback, it must be sacrificed after it attacks. In the graveyard it gives decayed counters to your opponents creatures, which is also very interesting because it stops them from blocking and gives them only 1 attack. The cards I am most interested in alongside Rot-Curse Rakshasa are Kaito, Bane of Nightmares, Voldaren Thrillseeker, and Unholy Annex. Kaito allows you to return the Rakshasa back to hand after damage, Voldaren Thrillseeker allows for you to attack and fling for 14 damage on turn 4, and Unholy Annex rewards having a demon, and Rakshasa is simply a cheap and competitively viable demon (sorry Three Tree Mascot).
Most Competitively Viable:
Ugin, Eye of the Storms
Ugin, Eye of the Storms appears to be insanely powerful. Exiling on cast and having a repeated exile on colorless spell casts, upticking to draw cards and gain life, zeroing to ramp for 3 mana, and a game winning ultimate mean that the planeswalker does everything you could possibly want. It is so good it is almost boring. I think it will be good in Standard, but I think it will be most powerful in Modern. Eldrazi is a top tier deck in the format and Ugin is so powerful it simply will not matter that he is not an Eldrazi for the Eldrazi Temples.
Vanisher Kirin
Flash
Flying
When this creature enters, return up to one other target nonland permanent you control to its owner’s hand. If it was a token, draw a card.
Vanisher Kirin is a perfect inclusion for Esper Bounce. It lacks 2 toughness compared to Fear of Isolation and is an etb trigger rather than an additional cost but that will all be greatly outweighed by simply having flash. Flash provides incredible flexibility. This is not surprising, instants are consistently far more powerful than sorceries.
