This will be my first post about Magic and I am super excited about it! The Draconic Domination Commander deck that is pre-built by Wizards Of The Coast is a monster by itself. As the name of the deck suggests, this deck is all aggro (meaning the focus is doing as much damage as possible) and once the ball gets rolling, it is hard to stop. There are a few things that hurt this deck and I will talk about those in a little bit. I have made some additions and subractions to the deck to fit the playing style of those I mostly play with (like @vermillionfox @kommienezuspadt and @tarotbyfergus) and to boost the overwhelming feeling you get when playing against this deck.
The commander of this deck is The Ur-Dragon. It’s "Eminence" ability allows it to affect the game whether it is on the battlefield or in the command zone. "... other Dragon spells you cast cost 1 less to cast." This is a major benefit to this deck, most of the dragons cost 5 mana or above. This allows faster play of scary dragons and an overall reduction in cost of dragon spells. It’s main ability once you get it onto the battlefield is what can turn the tide in a single turn. For each dragon that is attacking you get to draw a card, then you can put any permanent from your hand onto the battlefield. This allows you to potentially play a dragon that has an ability that triggers when it gets summoned and wreak more havoc on your opponents.
Sarkhan Unbroken was an addition by recommendation of @tarotbyfergus mainly because of its incredible -8 ability. It allows you to search your library for any number of dragons and put them onto the battlefield. If played correctly, this can be an instakill. Caution is needed when doing this though, as a board wipe (cards that remove or kill all creatures on the battlefield) would completely remove all of those creatures and leave you with none for the rest of the game.
A couple of key cards in this deck are Dromoka, the Eternal and Atarka, World Render. Dramoka allows you to Bolster 2 for each attacking dragon as soon as you declare the attack so you get +2 on creatures as they are attacking! And Atarka gives your attacking dragons double strike so their attack are twice as potent and really hurt. Other key cards in this deck are Utvara Hellkite and Tyrant’s Familiar. Utvara Hellkite makes 6/6 red dragon tokens each time a dragon attacks giving you many, many scary flying creatures. Tyrant’s Familiar’s main Lieutenant ability requires your commander to be on the battlefield but it gets a +2/+2 and deals 7 damage to target creature defending player controls.
A few cards I added to the deck were Gideon’s Intervention, Diplomatic Immunity, and Demolish. Playing Gideon’s Intervention and naming the opponent’s commander is a great feeling but being able to protect your enchantment is the name of the game at that point. Diplomatic Immunity is great because most of the dragons are high cost and it would suck to get it destroyed on your opponent’s next turn. Demolish is nice early game if you are able to destroy land or later when an opponent plays a bad artifact.
A few downfalls I have found so far after playing 30+ games with this deck is that there is very little removal. When you get enchanted and all of your creatures are 1/1 frogs and lose their abilities, it can be frustrating. Another weakness I have found is that if your opponent has a quick paced aggro deck or a deck that moves quickly in general, the dragons do not even have time to make it to the battlefield and do damage. Still working on figuring out how to deal with those ;)
I am looking for a new commander deck to buy and/or build soon, I will do a post on that when I get it and run a few games with it!
Nice post, I've always liked Dragons. Have you checked on any of the below cards? They're all reasonably priced and may be helpful against the issues you're having
Bogardan Hellkite - Dragon 6RR When it enters the battlefield it deals 5 damage distributed as you chose to any number of target creatures or players. Really nice against the weenie decks and can be a nice little kill spell if necessary. This was the go to dragon in the DragonStorm deck that won the world championships in 2006.
On that note it could use the card Dragon Storm!
A toolbox tutor for dragons that storms... Need I say more? Play along side Seething Song and Dark Petition for free mana / storm count.
If you're worried about early creatures, there are some nice enchants to help with this. Porphyry Nodes at W should help against aggro, even Elephant Grass may be viable against the weenies. Glostly prison is also great to slow down a game until you can get going.
In 5 color I also would maybe add Abrupt Decay in just about any circumstance. Beast Within can also take care of pesky enchantments or anything else. Aura Shards may also be just perfect for a creature heavy deck
Very good points! I haven’t looked into that deck before, I might need to ;) Like you said my big problems could be addressed with a few cards, I just didn’t know which ones.
Bogardan would help out tremendously when playing against commanders like Vraska, Relic Seeker or Krenko, Mob Boss. Elephant Grass would be a good choice as well during lots of creatures. @feenix do you know of any other cards that would be good in commader format? I have been thinking about adding the “Dragonlord” versions of some of the cards I have in there already like Silugmar and Dromoka.
I like Dromoka, Ojutai, and Atakra does similar stuff to Bogardan. Koaghan is just aweful in commander and Silugmar is ok.
I played a commander based on the dragon Prossh, Skyraider of Kher for a while where Prossh + Food Chain made for some really funny interactions with cards like Ashnod's alter. Infinite mana out of nowhere. Could always also infinite loop mana with an Animate Dead and Worldgorger Dragon combo. If you play fetchable lands you can grab most with an Eternal Dragon cycling if you build the deck with extra W. Harbringer of the Hunt also just wrecks weenie decks at will.
Thank you!