Here Be Dragons! – Review and Decklists with Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty’s Dragons
The Kamigawa Dragons are some of the most iconic cards in Magic and they're 6 new ones to explore! What does DoggertQBones think of them and what're the best decks to utilize their strength?
Hello everyone! There’s certainly plenty to be excited about with the Kamigawa spoiler season, but by the title of the article you may know what has me a little more excited than most: DRAGONS. Dragons are one of my favorite creature types ever as the Timmy in me just loves slamming down huge threats and bonking people to death with them!
With that, it’s certainly nice that Dragons got so much love in this set as we have 5 Mythic Dragons and (so far) a Rare Dragon on top of it! With my love for Dragons, it seems only right that I have to take a look at them, break them down, and see the most fitting decks they would go into! Let’s get started.
Sheesh and we come out of the gate swinging! We’re starting off with Ao and this has a lot going for it already. First off, a 5 mana 5/4 Flying Vigilance is a pretty solid stat line to start with. Like most Dragons, it’s going to kill relatively quickly, but unfortunately for Ao, it doesn’t stonewall the Mythic 4 mana Dragons nor Goldspan Dragon making it not the most effective blocker. However, as a Kamigawa Dragon, Ao has a death trigger that can still make the blocks profitable!
The first death ability for Ao is quite exciting as it looks extremely similar to Collected Company in a way. You get to see 7 cards versus 6, but obviously your choices are a bit more limited compared to Company. That said, you can grab as many nonlands as you want until you hit a combined 4 CMV which is definitely interesting as you could hit 4 1 drops in theory! Imagine if this was around with the old Inquisitor Captain, that would’ve been fun!
The second ability is also quite powerful as it’s like a juiced up Meadowboon where you get to put 2 +1/+1 counters on every creature and vehicle! This is a rather straightforward ability and if you have even two creatures/vehicles out, that seems extremely powerful.
Overall, Ao seems like quite the package deal. It attacks well, it defends well, and it has two death triggers that are both powerful and work in opposite situations. Need more threats on board? Go for the first trigger. Already have a good amount of threats on board? Go for the second trigger. It’s this versatility that is going to make Ao a really substantial threat.
Last but not least, there’s an extremely important ability on Ao: Vigilance. I mentioned it before, but I can’t understate how important Vigilance is on Ao. The obvious implication is that it can keep attacking and you can also defend and get a trigger at a moment’s notice which is definitely a huge upside. However, there’s another big reason it’s so important: The Wandering Emperor.
I think this is going to be one of the best cards coming out of Kamigawa, so not getting eaten by it seems like a huge deal.
All this together, Ao seems very strong and would play very well in any White deck that’s playing a good amount of creatures and/or permanents in general.
To that end, even though it’s a bit expensive, this could easily slot into a Monowhite Aggro strategy if it’s willing to go a bit bigger.
Next up on the list is our lone Rare Dragon, Kyodai! Unlike the Mythic Dragons, Kyodai doesn’t have a death trigger and has completely different templating, but this card seems excellent. First off, a 4 mana 3/3 Flash Flying on the surface is almost a playable card in Standard.
I’m very big on cards with Flash as they generally play out extremely well, but to have an ETB on top of that is so delectable. Being able to give something else Indestructible as long as Kyodai is out seems really really good whether you’re facing an aggro deck or control deck. You can very easily make a reasonable attack with 4 mana open and the opponent will be afraid to block because of Kyodai or even the aforementioned The Wandering Emperor!
Unfortunately, the final ability on Kyodai isn’t going to be particularly relevant in Constructed (but certainly is in Brawl or Commander), but that hardly matters on a card this strong. I’m getting very strong Restoration Angel vibes and although we don’t have the 4th point of toughness or ETB value, anything analogous to that is still going to be quite threatening.
Once again, Kyodai also seems to slot really well in a White aggressive strategy so the deck from above would still be how I built with Kyodai in mind.
We move on to the Blue Dragon of the set, Kairi! For Kairi, we do have our lone 6 mana Dragon which is unfortunately a huge downgrade compared to 5 mana, but it does also have the largest body of all the Dragons! A 6/6 Flier is definitely nothing to sneeze at and having Ward 3 on top of that is quite scary! This immediately reminds me of Desert Doom”], but always having the Ward and having death abilities even if they get around it is a pretty big upgrade!
Speaking of death triggers, Kairi has some pretty spicy ones. First off, being able to bounce 6 mana of permanents on death is a pretty nice way to stall if it’s absolutely necessary. Realistically I don’t think this will come up that often as the decks capable of killing a Kairi probably won’t be playing too many permanents, but having some built in defenses is definitely not a bad thing.
The second death trigger is a much bigger prize in my opinion. Milling 6 and then getting back two instants or sorceries is a really powerful effect and will give the opponent a whole other problem to worry about even if they manage to kill your giant Dragon!
All that said, I do think Kairi is a strong card, but may struggle to see play based on the mana cost alone. As I said, Iymrith is a pretty similar card, and that’s also struggled to see play despite being a mana cheaper and having a really strong combat trigger. This having permanent Ward as well as a death trigger could make a big difference though, so I’m holding out hope!
Now for the fun part. If Kairi is going to fit anywhere, I think it has to go into a Control deck. Let’s see a potential option.
Next on the chopping block we have ol Junji entering the mix. 5 mana 5/5 Flier per usual is a solid stat line, but admittedly Menace is always a weird keywork to see on fliers. Realistically it makes it more or less unblockable, but it’s nice to see that Sky Terror finally has more friends. I digress, we know the body is always going to be solid, what about the death triggers? Well Junji’s triggers are pretty gross.
The first trigger to Mind Rot the opponent and deal 2 is just a ubiquitously good ability. The opponent could be put in a terrible scenario where they have to pick between killing Junji and losing the majority/their whole hand or let it keep beating them to death which is a super brutal decision to make. However it does come with the obvious drawback of the opponent could just be hellbent. Thankfully, the second trigger can shore that up.
Being able the reanimate any non-Dragon creature from ANY graveyard gives Junji a nice amount of versatillity. Whether you’re just playing a midrange deck or going in on a reanimation strategy, Junji should have really juicy targets often.
Overall, I do like Junji but I do think it’s inherent issue is how hard it is to kill ironically. These Dragons are so good as their big threats until their death triggers put the opponent further behind, but without having many ways to realistically kill Junji, this is often going to be a 5 mana 5/5 Unblockable. Is that a bad stat line? No, but I would also argue it’s not an amazing card either. Nevertheless, I think Junji is solid, but likely going to be a bit niche.
I was actually struggling to come up with a deck Junji would really like being in until I realized the obvious. If I said Junji was mostly a 5/5 Flying Menace that doesn’t mind being killed, why not just put it in a deck that can leverage that clock?
Now we’re cooking with fire (get it?) Atushi is the second of the 4 mana dragons (first if we’re only counting Mythics) and as I said before, any mana you get to save on your bombs is a huge deal.
Like it’s other 4 mana Mythic Dragon predecessors, Atsushi is the classic 4 mana 4/4 stat line with lying and Trample interestingly enough. I don’t think Trample is often going to be relevant text when most Fliers are probably other Dragons, but I’m certainly not going to complain. That said, we have some pretty nice death triggers her as well!
Getting a Light Up the Stage on death isn’t bad, but I have to admit it’s a bit underwhelming on a 4 mana Mythic. Compare that to Moonveil Regent that can draw multiple cards (it’s not a death trigger, but still). Card advantage is still card advantage, but I do wish it had a little more oomph. Thankfully, this isn’t the best trigger on Atsushi.
Gaining 3 Treasure tokens on death is a pretty absurd bonus on a 4 mana creature. Whether it lets you double spell or you can abuse it with Goldspan Dragon, that’s a lot of mana to accrue off of something the opponent is more or less going to be forced to kill. Furthermore if you don’t need any extra mana, you can just use the other trigger!
Atsushi isn’t as flashy as the other Dragons, but it’s an extremely solid creature that will definitely see play in a good amount of Red decks.
Speaking of, you almost certainly could just play a Monored Dragons shell, but I think that adding a color may be the move.
To round out Kamigawa’s Dragons, we’re left with the green machine Kura. Despite Kura being a 5 mana Dragon, it unfortunately only has 4 power, but it’s lower power is offset by deathtouch. It’s always weird when already large creatures have Deathtouch, but since each Dragon was getting a marquee ability in their color, it seems that it was the only one left. For what it’s worth, it is helpful as it can freely tussle with the rest of the Dragons as well as big Wrenn and Seven tokens, but won’t be extremely relevant otherwise.
*It could’ve also gotten Vigilance as that’s generally a relatively common keyword Green creatures, but that was obviously taken by Ao. In theory Ao could’ve had Lifelink and Kura get vigilance, but not only would that be strange from a color perspective, a huge Lifelink Dragon would definitely be extremely threatening and could invalidate the rest of them. Not super important to note but analyzing the designs themselves is always fun for me!*
Like all the other Dragons though, it’s all about those death triggers. With that, admittedly the first trigger has me stumped. Tutoring 3 basic land cards would be extremely underwhelming, but getting to tutor ANY three lands and put them into your hand is definitely much more interesting. Being able to find creature lands or the new channel lands isn’t necessarily a huge benefit, but it’s definitely not negligible. if we’re looking past constructed, I’m sure Commander players are drooling over this one. I would be if I was playing Golgari and could search up Cabal Coffers, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and another great land!
The second trigger isn’t flashy, but getting another body on death can be really nasty especially if the opponent is trying to 1 for 1 you. It won’t be as impressive as Kura’s body most of the time, but if you have an excess of lands out, sometimes killing Kura is more threatening than letting it live which is a really nice feature that a few of the other Dragons also share.
Overall, I do think Kura has some tough competition with Wrenn and Seven and both death triggers are decent, but it’s still a solid card I wouldn’t be surprised to see in some Standard decks (and plenty of Commander decks.)
Kura is a tougher sell for me as there’s already a lot of good Green threats, but we could approach it from a more aggressive perspective.
Unlike most Mythic cycles, all of the cards do seem to have potential in one way or another which is certainly a breath of fresh air. That said, they definitely aren’t all created equal. This is how I would rate them overall in order.
Robert "DoggertQBones" Lee is the content manager of MTGAZone and a high ranked Arena player. He has one GP Top 8 and pioneered popular archetypes like UB 8 Shark, UB Yorion, and GW Company in Historic. Beyond Magic, his passions are writing and coaching! Join our community on Twitch and Discord.
