(Dragonstorm | Art by Kev Walker)

Dragonstorm Finishers

Welcome to Too-Specific Top 10, where if there isn’t a category to rank our pet card at the top of, we’ll just make one up! (Did you know that Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm plus Worldgorger Dragon is the only all-Dragon two-card combo that can draw the game?)

Tarkir: Dragonstorm has arrived, which has of course had a lot of folks looking up its namesake.

At nine mana, it's difficult to get enough things going that you can actually storm off with Dragonstorm. Difficult doesn't mean impossible, however, and as such, a lot of folks have tried. The question is, after you cast four rituals and end up with a Storm count of five and an equal number of Dragonstorms on the stack, what now?

Top 10 Dragonstorm Combos

I think that the first thing that most folks look into when they're brewing Dragonstorm is just doing enough damage to end a game. So, let's start there and see if we even need this combo thing:

Top 10 Dragons That Can Do Damage the Turn They Enter

1. Goldspan Dragon
2. Terror of the Peaks
3. Scourge of Valkas
4. Cavern-Hoard Dragon
5. Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient
6. Hellkite Charger
7. Ziatora, the Incinerator
8. Chaos Dragon
9. Two-Headed Hellkite
10. Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest

Alright, we've got 10 Dragons, that should be more than enough to finish things off, right? Let's do some quick math.

Goldspan Dragon is just a simple haster, so it just does four damage. It does do another four from entering if we resolve Terror of the Peaks' Dragonstorm search first, however, so let's assume that and get us up to eight. Oh, actually, Scourge of Valkas should be the first search, as it does its damage on its own entry, making it one for itself, two more for Terror of the Peaks, and then three more for Goldspan Dragon, totaling us up to 14 damage. It's a start.

Next down the list is Cavern-Hoard Dragon, another simple haster which will do 10 upon entering thanks to our various entering triggers, then swing in for six more, bringing our total to 30. Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient will make that 30 into 43, and then appears to go infinite with the next Dragon on our list, Hellkite Charger, but doesn't due to the "spend this mana only to cast spells" rider. That means it's another simple haster, taking our total damage to 59, provided we don't have seven mana sitting around.

Ziatora, the Incinerator doesn't have haste, but will deal damage equal to our biggest Dragon to a player at the end step after entering and dealing its Terror and Scourge damage, totaling us out to 78. Chaos Dragon is tiny, but we're up to 90 damage before it even swings in randomly for its four damage. Two-Headed Hellkite will also throw us a couple cards before ticking us up to a total of 109, and Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest caps it all off by entering and doing 15 before then exiling a card for each of the 10 Dragons we just searched up, at two damage apiece to each opponent.

This makes me realize that I should have been doing "triple damage" in our calculations for those things that do damage to each opponent, but let's call it a day at 144, an amount that should easily kill three opponents.

The only issue? 10 copies of Dragonstorm is really, really hard to do, and that math I just did is going to take a half hour to tally up and will likely have errors due to the amount of things going on. But here's the thing: If you're playing a Dragonstorm deck, doing a big Dragonstorm is the thing. You already did the thing. Most people, upon seeing 10 copies of Dragonstorm on the stack, would assume that you won. So why not save on all the math and just... win?

Criteria: Combos which involve exclusively Dragons. As is tradition, all results are ordered by EDHREC score.

10. Enduring Scalelord & Moritte of the Frost

(42 Inclusions)

So this particular combo? It doesn't actually finish the game. Still, I'm a fan of fair combos, and two infinitely large Dragons is both fair and threatening enough to feel like it warrants searching up with a couple of Dragonstorms. You get to say you did the thing, the table gets a full turn cycle to try and deal with them, and if no one can, the game ends.

With that said, make sure if you're trying to pull this off that you go get Enduring Scalelord first! It needs to be on the battlefield prior to Moritte of the Frost getting searched up, that way it can legally target it.

9. Bladewing the Risen, Terror of the Peaks, & Changeling Berserker

(103 Inclusions)

If you thought that Terror of the Peaks was only going to show up in our fair damage coverage, then I hate to disappoint. In fact, by the time we hit the top of this ten, you'll likely be sick of it. With that said, it's not like this is some loop that just has Terror of the Peaks finishing off players with all the blinking or what have you. For this process to work, you actually need to have it out to kill off the Changeling Berserker after you've sacrificed Bladewing the Risen to its Champion effect, returning Bladewing (this is where you deal damage to an opponent) to play so it can get back Changeling Berserker from the graveyard.

If that sounds convoluted, I don't know what to tell you other than "That's combos, baby!"

With all that said, I'm not sure that I love this particular combo. Changelings will always feel a bit like cheating to me, and these are three expensive cards I would hate to see in my hand in a deck trying to Storm off. Let's keep digging, and see what else we can find.

8. Bladewing the Risen & Moritte of the Frost

(788 Inclusions)

Whoa, déjà vu!

In all seriousness, if it seemed like there should be a simpler way to abuse Bladewing the Risen, it's because there absolutely is. In fact, there are 29 of them. Anything that will copy Bladewing will allow you to have state-based actions kill the original due to the legend rule, which you can then target with the copy's Bladewing enter ability to bring it back, which can then have the copy die to the legend rule, with the original bringing the copy back, ad infinitum.

The only issue? We're not really doing anything here, are we? If you have an extra Dragonstorm copy left over to grab Terror of the Peaks, then you're cooking, but if all you have is two copies and nothing on the board which can abuse enters, leaves, or dies triggers, then you're better off looking up two different Dragons.

7. Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon, & Moltensteel Dragon

(879 Inclusions)

Well, I'd say we should have been more specific with our criteria, but honestly, by the time I dug deep enough to find all ten of these combos, the well had run pretty dry. This combo, dear reader, sadly doesn't work with Dragonstorm. The reason? You need Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon and Moltensteel Dragon to be in your library so you can search them up with Scion of the Ur-Dragon and make it copies of them. Basically, you want a Moltensteel Dragon that you can make into a 10/4 with ample use of Phyrexian mana, that you then want to give infect.

You'll also note that this only kills one player; so all in all, it's just in no way what we're looking for today. Or any day, really. Making a mean combo deck with Scion of the Ur-Dragon I can totally see. Doing all that to just kill one player, however? I know I'd find that hard not to take a little personally.

 

 

6. Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm & Worldgorger Dragon

(1,400 Inclusions)

While it's a bit more risky than your usual Animate Dead Worldgorger Dragon shenanigans, as there's no way to stop the loop, it is fairly easy to search these two up and end up with infinite mana and enters triggers to abuse. Once again, also grabbing Terror of the Peaks makes this lethal, provided no one has any removal to make the whole game into a draw, or you can't pull things out with infinite mana and things you can do at flash speed.

The reason it's this far up the list, however? That would be because you can play Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm in the command zone. In fact, she's the second most popular Dragon commander behind The Ur-Dragon, meaning that if you're looking to crank your Dragon deck up a bracket, an easy way to do it is simply including this combo.

Honestly, if Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm included black or even white in its color identity, allowing for an easier route to cheat Worldgorger Dragon into play, it's likely that this would be a competitive EDH deck. Although, instant speed removal of Miirym leaves you with a 7/7 and no other board, so maybe it would all be a bit too risky in general. Eldritch Evolution is right there, after all, and you don't see anyone trying to sacrifice their Roaming Thrones to go grab Worldgorger Dragon for the win. And make no mistake: If it was worth doing, there would be brewers in the cEDH realm doing it.

With regards to Dragonstorm, this is another three-card combo that requires an outlet, featuring two six-mana cards that don't do much to help out any kind of Storm plan. I would firmly file this one under "great in the command zone, not so much in a Dragonstorm deck."

5. Vrondiss, Rage of Ancients & Terror of the Peaks

(1,460 Inclusions)

For those who are puzzling over how this could possibly work, the piece you're missing is that this is actually a three-card combo, requiring an effect that will give Vrondiss, Rage of Ancients indestructible. This can be achieved with a Dragon via Kyodai, Soul of Kamigawa, meaning that we do have another viable three-card combo here that's completely fetchable via Dragonstorm, albeit only in five-color decks.

My usual caveat of none of these cards really doing anything in a Storm deck applies, although that's not entirely true of Terror of the Peaks, given that casting creatures does count towards Storm. Still, this seems pretty promising with Kyodai, Soul of Kamigawa in the command zone. It's an option!

 

4. Vrondiss, Rage of Ancients & Scourge of Valkas

(2,633 Inclusions)

 

Okay, I do have a tendency to be dismissive of repetition. Can you blame me? I'm trying to make refreshing, unique content here.

With that said, redundancy is a thing, and is likely to make your deck better. That goes double for combos, where it doubles the likelihood that you'll see a combo piece (or in the case of combos pulling from the deck, like with Dragonstorm, that you won't see a combo piece appear in hand). So instead of dismissing Vrondiss and Scourge of Valkas as being exactly what we just talked about, I can instead say that the fact that this same combo has two different variations makes it a stronger contender.

Except, does it? If anything, this combo that has higher inclusions is worse than Vrondiss and Terror of the Peaks, which ended with you having infinite 5/4 Dragon Spirit tokens. This one, on the other hand, has the tokens deal the damage to Vrondiss themselves, making them each sacrifice themselves as you go. In other words, what we're really talking about here is a four-card combo, with our "two-card" combo only working if we have Kyodai there to give indestructible, and a fourth Dragon that will trigger to do something relevant on enters, leaves, dies, or sacrifice.

You'd think that'd be a pretty deep well, but it turns out the only Dragons that trigger to do something relevant under those circumstances are Terror of the Peaks (infinite damage), Korvold, Fae-Cursed King (infinite card draw), and Boltwing Marauder (infinite power).

And honestly? I think I'm for this as a plan, precisely because it's clunky and a bit all over the place. After all, it's not like we're just looking to go Mana Geyser into Dragonstorm for two specific Dragons and just win, right? We're looking to really Storm off and grab a bunch of Dragons that then do a cool thing. And if they don't do a cool thing that wins the game, they should at least do a cool thing that puts you in position to do it, right? Well, I don't know about you, but I think searching up Vrondiss, Terror of the Peaks, Scourge of Valkas, Korvold, and Boltwing Marauder to see what the table can deal with is more than a bit of a splash.

3. Niv-Mizzet, Visionary & Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind

(5,460 Inclusions)

Sigh... If you were looking for the actual answer to this whole puzzle, however, then Wizards saw fit to just do the whole jigsaw for us - or at least make it into a 12-piece instead of 12,000. Niv-Mizzet, Visionary is the newest version of everyone's favorite Dracogenius, out of Foundations. And don't get me wrong, I see what they were trying to do: he's a Niv-Mizzet that synergizes with other Niv-Mizzets. If that's all he'd done, I would've been for it! We could have had a fun Niv-Mizzet deck. I ask you, though: Did we really need a new set of infinite combos for a series of cards already notorious for going infinite with multiple cards?

Regardless of how I feel, however, Niv-Mizzet, Visionary is a Dragon that goes infinite with several other Dragons, winning the game if you have the ability to draw a card. In fact, it's so good at doing this that this combo is even seeing some cEDH play. Well, not this combo, actually...

2. Niv-Mizzet, Visionary & Niv-Mizzet, Parun

(9,284 Inclusions)

Yes, predictably, there is a reason to play Niv-Mizzet, which means that you must play the best Niv-Mizzet. Niv-Mizzet, Parun has a rather prohibitive mana cost, with six straight pips, but for that extra effort, you're rewarded with a version that essentially combos with itself, dealing a damage and drawing a card anytime you cast an instant or sorcery. Even better, Dragonstorm players don't have to care about the crazy pips!

All this led to a bit of a splash a couple weeks back at a meme "cEDH" tournament, where contenders were only allowed to play the rather fringe cEDH commander, Flubs, the Fool. That generally means folks playing a lot of cheerios with no cards in hand, but in the case of this specific tournament, one ComedIan showed up with a Dragonstorm/Food Chain list:

Now, does showing up with an "off-meta" list from a tournament that only allows a single commander that many wouldn't actually consider a real contender count as "cEDH"? Well, no, probably not. I would still say that it's a pretty good indicator that this is the strongest thing you can be doing off of Dragonstorm, however. As previously stated, it's not difficult to go Mana Geyser into Dragonstorm for two copies, which can then resolve both these Niv-Mizzets and kill the table the very next time you manage to cast a spell or draw a card. That's pretty strong. One might say so strong that it's kind of boring.

1. Old Gnawbone & Hellkite Charger

(15,081 Inclusions)

Our final combo is both one of the strongest, and also one that doesn't quite work with Dragonstorm. In order for you to get the infinite combats, generally two things are needed: another creature that can attack immediately, outside of Hellkite Charger, and seven mana to start the whole thing off. Which begs the question, why is this our top combo if it's kind of... bad?

Well, there's a dirty secret to Commander Spellbook: almost all of its top combos aren't really there because folks are playing them as combos. Instead, the top combos tend to be card combinations that appear in a lot of decks, and folks are completely unaware that they can go infinite. I would solidly place Old Gnawbone and Hellkite Charger in this category. Beyond just Dragon decks, even a lot of Gruul aggro decks end up playing both of these cards on their lone benefits, not even realizing what can happen when you put the two together.

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Honorable Mentions

So what's our best combo to go grab with Dragonstorm? As previously stated, it's fairly easily the two Niv-Mizzets. Finding a way to draw a card or cast a spell is fairly trivial, and it results in an easy infinite damage situation. All that said, I don't like it. The entire idea of Dragonstorm is to be flashy prior to casting it, seeing how many copies you can get, not just crapping out two Dragons that win the game and calling it a day. Instead, I would put forth that our various Terror of the Peaks nonsense combos are the way to go. In fact, we even just got a new one with Tarkir: Dragonstorm that's worth checking out!

An old combo from the Mythic format, double Bladewings allow you to have infinite enters, leaves, dies, and sacrifice triggers. From there, you simply need something that can take advantage of those. If this is all sounding old hat, it's because we went over it with Bladewing the Risen and Moritte of the Frost, along with Bladewing and Changeling Berserker, and all that was barely scratching the surface. Well, now there's a new, even more efficient version of the combo with the new Dragon clone, Deceptive Frostkite. Is it any better than the 30 other versions of this combo utilizing a Clone? No, not at all, other than the fact that it, like Moritte of the Frost, can be grabbed via Dragonstorm. This does mean that you have a resilient combo that can play multiple redundancies, however, which is nothing to sneer at. Even better, it can give you options for if you have portions of the combo in hand or graveyard:

First off, having portions of the combo in your graveyard. If its not Bladewing the Risen or Terror of the Peaks, then the answer is simple: Use Bladewing's ETB to return the clone to the battlefield, and voila! You're in business. If it's Terror of the Peaks? Go get Scourge of Valkas, and you're also still good to go. If it's Bladewing, however, then you've got a bit more of a hoop to jump through. The best answer I could find, in Dragon form? Betor, Ancestor's Voice. It's a bit clunky, but essentially, here's the process:

1. Cast Dragonstorm, with at least a Storm count of two.
2. Grab Terror of the Peaks with the first copy.
3. Grab a clone with the second copy, copying Terror of the Peaks.
4. Resolve both Terror of the Peaks triggers, targeting yourself with both copies and dealing yourself 10 damage.
5. Grab Betor, Ancestor's Voice with the final copy.
6. Resolve the two Terror of the Peaks ETBs from Betor, killing the clone with one and whatever needs removed with the second.
7. Go to your end step, triggering Betor, Ancestor's Voice and returning Bladewing the Risen to the battlefield.
8. Proceed with the Bladewing combo, alternating bringing back the clone and Bladewing with a Terror of the Peaks trigger each time you do.

That's the hard one out of the way! As for if portions of the combo are stuck in your hand when you're wanting to do the Dragonstorm thing? The easiest thing to do is cast them with Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient, although this might not give you enough mana to cast Bladewing specifically. If that's the case, then you can go grab Moonveil Regent and Betor, Ancestor's Voice, which will allow you to do the above nonsense, only with other spells thrown in from your hand that will let you discard Bladewing via Moonveil's cast trigger.

And if none of that seems to work, or Bladewing gets exiled? Well, there's always Roaming Throne naming Dragons as a backup, which will more than allow you to ride Terror of the Peaks and Scourge of Valkas to a straight damage victory with a big enough Dragonstorm. Happy Storming!

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Nuts and Bolts

There always seems to be a bit of interest in how these lists are made (this seems like a good time to stress once again that they are based on EDHREC score, NOT my personal opinion…), and people are often surprised that I’m not using any special data or .json from EDHREC, but rather just muddling my way through with some Scryfall knowledge! For your enjoyment/research, here is this week’s Scryfall Commander Spellbook search(es).

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What Do You Think?

And finally, what are your favorite Dragons to grab with Dragonstorm? Do they combo, or just go for the straight damage win?

Let us know in the comments, and we'll see you at the table held up by Dragon wings. Thing's pretty sweet, if you ask me.