Best Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander Decks, Ranked

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home April 1, 2025 4 Views 10 Min Read
Best Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander Decks, Ranked
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Summary

  • The Sultai Arisen deck focuses on graveyard mechanics but has a slow payoff and low overall power.
  • The Jeskai Striker deck is spell-heavy and diverse in design, offering room for upgrades and customization.
  • The Mardu Surge deck emphasizes combat and tokens, with commanders rewarding token sacrifices and value.

There are five brand new Magic: The Gathering Commander decks in the Tarkir: Dragonstorm set, each one based on one of the three color Clans of Tarkir. These decks are specially designed to represent the best of each group, with new cards and fancy mechanics to keep you playing long into the night.

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If you’re not sure which deck you want to pick up, or just want to see which is the best of the best to watch out for next time you sit down at your local game shop, we took a deep dive into each of the five decks to let you know which one comes out on top.

5

Sultai Arisen

Can’t Stay Dead

With a focus on the graveyard, and specifically things leaving the graveyard, the black, green, and blue Sultai Arisen deck leaves a little to be desired compared to many other preconstructed graveyard-based decks.

The main commander, Kotis, Sibsig Champion, lets you cast creatures from your graveyard if you exile three more cards from your graveyard when you pay their casting cost. Then, if you have a creature enter the battlefield from the graveyard, Kotis gets two +1/+1 counters. This isn’t bad, it’s just a long, slow burn with not a great payoff.

Swapping in the Spirit Dragon Teval, the Balanced Scale gives you a neat ramp package when attacking, letting you mill three cards and then get a land from your graveyard back to play. Anytime you have a card leave the graveyard, you get a 2/2 Zombie Druid token, but that payoff is still pretty low.

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Possibly the most vital card here is Steward of the Harvest, which lets you turn all your creatures into up to three lands that you can exile from your graveyard. If you exile a card like Strip Mine, suddenly you can start sacrificing tokens to deny your opponents from all their lands.

4

Jeskai Striker

Prowess Powers

A comparatively Dragon-lite preconstructed deck in a set all about Dragons, the Jeskai Striker is all about maximizing your spells and helping you keep the board clear for an alpha strike from a powered-up creature or two. This blue, red, and white deck is a bit all over the place with its design; however, it does give you ample space to make swaps as you upgrade the deck.

Starring as the main commander is the duo of Shiko and Narset, Unified, coming with the new Jeskai-specific ability flurry, letting you copy your second spell each turn so long as that spell targets a permanent or player. That does require you to have access to both extra mana to cast multiple spells in a turn as well as lots of card draw to keep your hand full at all times.

Changing pace a bit, you have Elsha, Threefold Master to go more in the token approach. Elsha starts out as only a 1/1 though they have prowess to help grow their power. Dealing combat damage with Elsha gives you that many 1/1 Monk tokens with prowess, so spells that let you slip past blockers and gives Elesha a power boost helps to make them an all-in strategy.

3

Mardu Surge

For The Greater Good

Combat is the name of the game with the Mardu Surge deck, a red, white, and black deck that encourages you to swing out as often as you can. There is a heavy emphasis on tokens in the deck too, with tons of cards and even the commanders making tokens as often as you can.

The main commander, Zurgo Stormrender, rewards you for your token sacrifices, letting you draw a card when a token leaves the battlefield while attacking, or making each opponent lose a life if it does not. Either route gives you value, and the deck’s subtle Aristocrats subtheme can be expanded to get more value from these effects.

Swapping to Neriv, Crackling Vanguard gives you a neat effect from the Command Zone that feels fairly unique and stronger later in the game. When Neriv attacks, you get to exile cards from the top of your deck equal to the number of differently named tokens you control. So if you have a Human, Goblin, and Elf, you exile three cards. If you attack with your commander, you can cast those cards, though you have to pay the mana costs.

2

Abzan Armor

A Strong Defense

This type of toughness-based Commander deck isn’t unique but hasn’t been seen in quite some time, giving the white, black, and green Abzan Armor deck a chance to standout among the other preconstructed decks from Dragonstorm.

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Felothar the Steadfast is the main commander for the deck, letting your creatures deal damage based on their toughness rather than their power all while giving your defender creatures the chance to attack. Felothar comes loaded with another ability to sacrifice another creature and pay three mana to draw cards equal to the sacrificed creature’s toughness and discarding cards equal to is power.

If you want to switch strategies up a bit, you can swap in Betor, Ancestor’s Voice to the Command Zone. This Spirit Dragon adds +1/+1 counters to one of your creatures equal to the amount of life you gained on your turn. You then get to bring back a creature card with a mana value less than or equal to the amount of life you gained from the graveyard to the battlefield. Getting a free reanimate effect every turn is a solid way strategy, letting you make use of some great enter the battlefield triggers and be a little looser with your attacks.

1

Temur Roar

Here There Be Dragons

With all the Dragons roaming about on Tarkir, it only makes sense that they would get their own Commander-focused deck, and the Temur Roar is perfect for any Dragon kindred fan. This green, blue, and red deck wants those massive creatures out quickly so there’s a healthy mix of ramp, cost reduction for Dragons, and mana rocks to help keep you consistent.

The addition of so many new Dragons to the game gives this deck a big boost in power, with some powerful new additions increasing the deck’s power above the rest. You can get:

  • Broodcaller Scourge
  • Deceptive Frostkite
  • Hellkite Courser

Leading the charge is Eshki, Temur’s Roar and the alternate commander, Ureni of the Unwritten. Eshki is a bit more of a generic big creature commander, not having any specific Dragon abilities, but giving you a free draw when you cast a creature with power four or more, and then dealing damage equal to Eshki’s power when you cast a creature with power six or more.

Ureni is the Dragon-specific commander here, letting you take a peek at the top eight cards of your deck when he enters or attacks and snagging a Dragon creature from among those cards and putting it directly into play.

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