Having been into MTG for a year and a half, I don’t have the long history people have. With the gimmicky sets, these have been normal for Magic for me, but when Bloomburrow dropped, I quickly discovered the brilliance that is Magic originality. Well, Tarkir is many people’s favourite plane, and having played with the set now, I understand why! Bring on Tarkir: Dragonstorm!
So what is Tarkir, and what is a dragonstorm?
At the end of the Aetherdrift story, we discovered a dragonstorm had occurred on Avishkar, where dragons come out of the sky. Elspeth has now followed that to the plane of dragons, Tarkir. Here, there are heaps of them occurring. This is because a ritual had been cast to return dragons to the OG clans, which of course caused heaps more chaos with dragonstorms dropping dragons everywhere.
We get Elspeth, we get a big daddy dragon Ugin, we get Sarkhan, we get Ajani, we get Jace, we get so many characters. The story itself is fun, and you should check it out here. As a newer player who hasn’t been on Tarkir before, the biggest thing you will discover is the clans returning. This is because three colour decks are named after said clans. You finally know what that Temur deck you’ve been playing for ages is named after.
What’s new in Tarkir: Dragonstorm?
The biggest new card type is Omens. These are cards with a main function and a secondary option in the bottom left. Visually, it is similar to the adventure cards from Wilds of Eldraine. The major difference, though, is these cards get shuffled back into your deck after you use the sorcery option, whereas adventure cards would be exiled, allowing you to play them later. It’s similar but different enough to be unique.
Each clan has their own fun mechanic, too. Abzan has endure, where when something endures, you have the choice to either add an x +1 counter to the creature or create a spirit with x power and toughness. It is super handy having that flexibility, as at the stage in the game you can decide if you need one bigger creature or to be a bit wider.
Jeskai has Flurry, which is an ability that kicks off when you cast a second spell in the turn; whether it’s a buff or another benefit, it’s super useful, especially if you are doing something with prowess.
Sultai gets Renew, which is a graveyard tool. For whatever cost, you can exile the card from your graveyard and use its renew ability for some other kind of effect. I have been at the receiving end of some fun renew effects that absolutely stomped me.
Mardu has my favourite new mechanic with Mobilize. This has a number next to it, and when your creature attacks, it creates that number of 1/1 tokens that are attacking and get sacked at the next end step. This alone lets you go wide early, but working with cards that let you sacrifice a creature, this can get dominant fast!
Temur gets Harmonize which is another graveyard effect letting you cast some spells a second time for the Harmonize cost. The Harmonize costs tend to be obscene, but you can use your creature’s power to help pay for it. I like the idea but struggled with making the call on whether I want to attack with my big thing or use my big thing to tap and Harmonize a card.
Another fun mechanic is Seige cards. These are enchantments with two options for an effect. You chose the clan option when it enters and it has that effect when it is on the battlefield. I love these cards and regularly chose them to base decks around, because they are fun.
All in all, the mechanics in Tarkir: Dragonstorm are exceptional. I have consistently had fun playing with all of them, and some of them mesh well with each other, giving you so many options.
So what’s it like to play?
I was nervous going into drafting a set like this. With the clans being three coloured, I was worried, but I needn’t have been. In general, you can make a two coloured deck, splashing your third colour, and thanks to heaps of mana fixing in the set, you can easily play two to three colours. Plenty of people have successfully gone five colours. Me, not so much. My five colour deck was terrible, but it was fun.
Both sealed and draft have given me fantastically fun games. Loading up with dragons and living on the risky side, building a synergistic deck, whatever I did, win or lose, I have constantly had fun. Let’s be honest, when it comes to Friday Night Magic, what you want is fun, right?
What about the Commander Decks?
Each clan has its own Commander Deck. I have been playing with Temur Roar and Mardu Surge, and I love them both so much.
Mardu Surge is all about getting tokens out and making them strong. This is great, as the face commander, Zurgo Stormrender, uses that fun new mechanic, Mobilize. Every time I played this deck, I came half a turn away from winning or slight wins. It’s not a hard deck to pilot, but boy, it’s fun.
Temur Roar is a slower deck to get going, but when it gets going, it slaps. It is all about getting big dragons out en masse. The face commander is Ureni of the Unwritten, who is a big dragon that, when he enters or attacks, you get to search through eight cards of your library to play dragons for free. The problem is it’s a seven mana commander, and everyone is watching and waiting for it to drop to kill on site. The moment I swapped for the backup commande Eshki, Temur’s Roar, I started racking up wins. She is three mana, and when you cast a creature spell, she gets +1 counters and more benefits if they are powerful. She can get you a good board state without looking like a threat, and then if you also get Ureni out, then you will suddenly have an out of control board.
These two decks I can conclusively say are fantastic, and looking at the other three, I suspect you will have a great time no matter who you pick up.
How about the style?
It’s not all about fun gameplay, right? Well, that is the most important thing, but then there is the awesomeness on the cards themselves. Well, aside from the fantastic art on the dragons themselves, and the rest of the cards, to be fair, there is some seriously cool stuff in here.
One of the alternate arts is the dragons, which have a super cool border and an extra cool dragons design. These are across all the rarity types, so you will see heaps of these beautiful cards. Then there are the baby dragons which are full art cards that you can flip over for a full art version/baby version of the card. These are super cool; I even saw someone crack an Ugin baby, which is adorable!
Heaps of cards also have a cool alt design where the majority of the card is black. I have seen people have mixed views on these, but the rare holo at the bottom pops on the black backdrop. The arts are consistently cool, and they mix in the clan’s colours in stunning ways. I love these cards.
Then there are the lands. There are normal lands, and then there are full-art dragon lands. The full art dragon lands are gorgeous, each with the appropriate landscape for the colour, with a dragon’s shadow going across them. I love them.
The other land you may have noticed is the dragon eye lands. These have a dragon’s eye with the mana symbol in the iris. These are so insanely cool, the problem is, they are exclusive to Collector Boosters, but you aren’t guaranteed one as you may get a normal full art. I wish the lands in the Collector Boosters were guaranteed dragon eyes because these are going to be insanely rare. I have bought too many Collector Boosters and don’t have a set.
When it comes to elite versions of cards, there are a few. Ghostfire foils have super fancy versions of cards that have a beautiful wavy foiling on them. Then there are the dragonscale foils, through which the fetch land special guests can come in. I haven’t seen a dragonscale one in person yet, but based on images, they look amazing. I did manage to pull a ghostfire foil card, and it looks so damn nice.
So how can you buy it?
As always, you can nab Play Boosters. These, and boxes of boosters, are best for drafting, but I do enjoy cracking a booster or two (or too many) for cracking open and seeing what’s inside.
There is a normal bundle for Tarkir that comes with 9 boosters, one of each of the dragon shadow lands in foil and non-foil, some other basic lands, a gorgeous dice, and a tidy card storage box. There is also an alt art promo, and this one has a cool version of Temur Battlecrier. As always, I love bundles as my way to crack some packs for the fun of it, and they are consistently good value.
Prerelease kits are usually used for prerelease, and if you’re lucky, you can still nab one at an LGS. These ones have clan themes. Instead of six Play Boosters, these ones have five, and the sixth pack is a clan-seeded pack. This has the random promo in it and a bunch of cards that vary but are in the clan’s colour identity. This made for a fun and unique sealed experience.
Then, of course, for the people with a bit more cash, there are Collector Boosters. These ones have more rares than a normal booster and are packed with way more alt art cards. These are also the way to get the dragon scale and ghost fire foils. I love these packs, but god, I wish they had a guaranteed dragon eye land in them.
Should you play Tarkir: Dragonstorm?
For my first experience on this iconic plane, I can easily say, hell yeah! The gameplay is fun, there are heaps of cards having an impact on constructed, the art is stunning. I mean what more can I say? It’s a bloody fantastic set. I am definitely amped for the next time Magic returns to Tarkir!
Tarkir: Dragonstorm is an outstanding set!
Cool cards, cool lore. fun mechanics, incredible art. I am trying to find anything to ding it for, but I can't. It's just so damn excellent!
