12 New Decks for Tarkir: Dragonstorm Standard

Hey all. Tarkir: Dragonstorm is almost here, with pre-releases this weekend and the set coming to Magic Arena next Tuesday, April 8th.

So with that in mind, it is time to start talking about the various decks that I’ve brewed up to try once the set drops. As always, these brews contain as many new cards as possible, and I even brewed at least one deck for each clan.

Standard is pretty powerful right now, so it may be hard for some of these new cards to make an impact, but we won’t know if we don’t try, so let’s dive right in!

Disclaimer: These are all untested first drafts, that will likely need some tweaking, especially in the mana base.

Grixis Dragons

When looking at the most powerful dragons in the set, my eyes were drawn to both Marang River Regent and Scavenger Regent, both for their omen spells and creature sides.

I tried to make Sultai work, but Bloomvine Regent (more on that card in the next deck) can only fetch basic forests, so it seemed hard to make work in a three color deck.

This deck has a lot of other sweet dragon synergy cards like Dispelling Exhale and Caustic Exhale, which work fine on their own but better with dragons, and Dragonologist which can dig for our dragons or interaction.

I think this deck has a good shot in the format, because it has a lot of good interaction for fast decks, and card advantage and counterspells for slower decks. Just gotta hope they don’t resolve Up the Beanstalk on turn 2…

Golgari Dragons

This is my second take on a dragon deck, this time using Bloomvine Regent alongside Scavenger Regent.

We also have Disruptive Stormbrood to help us take out creatures early and take out Up the Beanstalk later on, and Sagu Wildling to help up our dragon count.

While we still have Caustic Exhale for interaction, we also get Corroding Dragonstorm, which we should be able to cast several times over the course of the game to help drain the opponent out and find our dragons.

I couldn’t resist playing Up the Beanstalk since it works with most of our dragons, and Vivien Reid gives us more ways to find dragons and take out opposing copies of Up the Beanstalk.

We’ll see how this one plays out, but I think it has a lot of good tools to fight in the meta, and should have a pretty powerful late game as well.

Abzan Aggro

There is a lot going on this deck, including new cards like Descendant of Storms to cosplay Usher of the Fallen, Rot-Curse Rakshasa to chunk in early and then put decayed counters on our opponent’s blockers, and Voice of Victory to make our opponent’s interaction awkward.

Higher up the curve we have Skirmish Rhino for some drain and trample, and Felothar, Dawn of the Abzan to turn extra tokens into big pumps. Felothar works well with the tokens from Descendant of Storms, Voice of Victory, or Preacher of the Schism.

To round it out we have Debris Beetle for more drain, and Pawpatch Recruit and Mosswood Dreadknight to fill in our curve. Oh and some removal.

I don’t know how well the mana base will work, but at least our first three lands will always be untapped.

Abzan Sacrifice

This deck is much less all-in then other builds of sacrifice, in that it is not totally relying on Raise the Past to combo off and kill, but rather it is trying to go wide and then sacrifice things to Felothar, Dawn of the Abzan to pump up the whole team, and then finish the opponent off with drains from Vengeful Bloodwitch.

I have no idea if this deck is going to work, and splashing green might not be worth it, but Felothar is just so sweet in this type of deck that I had to try it!

We have plenty of good stuff to sacrifice from Infestation Sage to Nesting Bot to Vinereap Mentor, and plenty of ways to sacrifice them through Felothar, Zahur, Glory's Past, and Ruthless Lawbringer.

Enduring Innocence and Gas Guzzler keep us topped up on cards, and Anafenza, Unyielding Lineage can give us more tokens, or counters, to work with.

Temur Ramp

Can we rival Domain as the biggest deck in the format? Maybe. I think this deck will be fun regardless.

The goal of this deck is to ramp up using Overlord of the Hauntwoods, Heaped Harvest, and Invasion of Zendikar, and then cast Dragonback Assault or Ureni, the Song Unending to clean up the board and start pressuring the opponent.

Along the way we can use Up the Beanstalk and Mazemind Tome to keep the cards flowing, and This Town Ain't Big Enoughand Ill-Timed Explosion to manage the board.

A lot of the inclusions in this deck are to make sure that we had enough targets to make This Town Ain't Big Enoughwork, such as all of our permanent based ramp. However it also works great with Dragonback Assault and Ureni when we need to use a sweeper again.

This deck will likely need some tweaking, but I like the late game power it has, and I think with the right tuning it could have a space in the meta.

Temur Midrange

Ah, Temur Midrange. A deck I tried to make work endlessly in original Tarkir, but never could. This take on Temur Midrange is trying to quickly build up a powerful board and beat the opponent down before they know what happened.

Temur Battlecrier and Overlord of the Hauntwoods help us cast our big spells early, while Outcaster Trailblazer can keep us topped up on cards.

Trumpeting Carnosaur and Roar of Endless Song provide us two things for the price of one, and Spectral Denial and Obliterating Bolt help us interact with the opponent. We may want Torch the Towerof Obliterating Bolt, but we don’t really have ways to bargain it so that is why I was hesitant to include it.

I’m excited to give this deck a try, and probably be disappointed when it is a bit too clunky, but hey, that is the Temur life.

Mardu Tokens

Is this just worse than Boros Convoke? Maybe. Is Elspeth, Storm Slayer too expensive for this type of deck? Most likely. Are their still going to be some sweet games that come out of this? 100%.

Mobilize is a pretty sweet mechanic, and we’ve got the tools to make use of it with Stadium Headliner, Voice of Victory, and Zurgo, Thunder's Decree giving us tons of attacking tokens to smash our opponent with.

Resolute Reinforcements and Frontline Rush give us some instant speed blockers or attackers, while Case of the Gateway Express and Inevitable Defeat help us remove pesky blockers.

I jammed Preacher of the Schism and Ruthless Lawbringer in this deck, but honestly they could also be copies of Warleader's Call to make the most of all of our tokens.

Finally, we have Elspeth, Storm Slayer that can pump up our whole team, and doubles the tokens we make from our mobilize cards, so if we ever get to five mana she should win the game if we have an okay board.

I know there is something here, and we will just have to keep tweaking and tuning until we have the best Mardu Mobilize deck, and I’m sure that we will get there eventually.

Boros Token Control

I was trying to find a deck for United Battlefront and I think I found something. We’ve seen this type of deck before, but I think we got some sweet new tools to add to it.

First, is United Battlefront itself, which can find us a Caretaker's Talent alongside a way to trigger it such as Carrot Cake, Urabrask's Forge, or Builder's Talent. It can also find us removal in the form of Chainsaw and Temporary Lockdown.

Out of the sideboard it can hit Authority of the Consuls Rest in Peace, and High Noon, all great options against different decks in the format.

Second, we have Elspeth, Storm Slayer to double up our tokens and possibly pump them up for lethal, or even just remove an opposing creature.

Sunfall ties the deck together, while Fountainport makes sure that we always have tokens for our engine.

I’m not sure if this type of deck can still be competitive in Standard, but hey, some new tools means it is worth giving a shot.

Sultai Control

I saw Fangkeeper's Familiar and knew that I had to build a Sultai deck. The flexibilty of that card alone is worth it. It can take out Up the Beanstalk, counter a problematic creature, or even just gain some life, surveil, and dive in as a blocker.

The rest of the deck came about when I saw that Mystical Teachings is Standard legal, and I had to build some sort of flash/control deck to play these two cards together.

Mystical Teachings can find any of our tools, like removal and counterspells, card advantage in Think Twiceand Marang River Regent, and even big plays like Time Stop

Marang River Regent is a powerful add, giving us card advantage early and a powerful threat that can stabilize the board late, and Awaken the Honored Deadtakes out problematic permanents and helps us hit our land drops or bring back one of our interactive creatures.

The mana base probably needs some work, but I think we will be able to cast most of our spells on time.

I am really excited to try this one out, it just seems like it will have so many interesting lines and endless options.

Golgari Graveyard

This one isn’t super interesting, because it is mostly a copy of the Golgari Graveyard deck that Top 8’ed the last Pro Tour, but we got some fun new tools so why not.

First we have Avenger of the Fallen which can easily make 6 or more tokens in this deck, which is going to end the game very quickly.

Second, we have Rot-Curse Rakshasa and Lasyd Prowler to mill over and then activate their renew abilities, giving us even more value from the graveyard. They are also both fine to cast, giving us good options in the early and mid game.

I’m not sure this is the best build of this deck, but I wanted to try to find a home for Avenger of the Fallen and this seemed like a good place to start.

Jeskai Flurry

I was kind of struggling to brew a Jeskai deck, but I think I landed on something interesting.

I knew that I wanted to play Cori-Steel Cutter, a very powerful engine, Flamehold Grappler, with such a cool ability and great body, and Sage of the Skies with such an interesting design.

It started to come together when I added the plot cards, Slickshot Show-Off and Highway Robbery, a great aggro threat and card filtering spell respectively, and then threw in some cheap card draw with Opt, Might of the Meek, and Crash Through.

Between all of the cheap spells that draw cards, it shouldn’t be too hard to trigger Cori-Steel Cutter several times, and it should also be easy to get value with Flamehold Grappler and Sage of the Skies on turn three or four.

Is this good? No idea. The best aggro decks in the format are much more straight forward and less reliant on things coming together, but I think that with some tuning we could have a powerful engine to fuel the powerhouse that is Cori-Steel Cutter.

Four-Color Burn Midrange

This is a very silly one, but when I saw Skirmish Rhino and Inevitable Defeat previewed, my mind immediately went to the fact that we already had Debris Beetle and Lightning Helix in the format and I knew I had to try some weird four-color brew.

Charming Scoundrel and Fear of Missing Out are our early plays to help find the colors we need, and Preacher of the Schism helps us either draw cards or stay alive by making tokens.

Overlord of the Boilerbilges gives us more burn at our opponent’s face, but can also be used as a removal spell, and the same goes for Lightning Helix.

I think this deck has enough interaction to compete in the format, but getting the mana base is going to be the tricky part. This current mana base is all over the place, but I just need to play some games before I can really tell what lands are worth including and which ones are not.

This one should be a fun one, and I can’t wait to give it a try (and then lose to color issues).

Wrapping Up

I hope some of these decks look interesting either to try or to take and test and tidy up once the set drops on Tuesday!

I know I can’t wait to jam some games once the set drops, and even if none of these decks end up being the most competitive in the format, I know that they should at least make for some funs games of Magic!

Until next week, best of luck brewing and once the set is out best of luck in your games!