#mtg dtk

Atarka Monument Shard- Wondrous item, Rare

This piece of bone was pulled from the monument dedicated to the great dragonlord Atarka, and has been imbued with the essence of her worship. This item has three charges, and regains 1d4-1 charges each day at dawn. While holding the bone, you can use an action and expend a charge to cause it flare with the power of Atarka’s breath, creating a 30-foot cone of green flames. Each creature in the area must make a DC 16 Dexterity saving throw, taking 6d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much on a successful one. You can also use an action and expend three charges to summon the spirit of an atarka brood dragon (use the statistics of an adult red dragon) in an unoccupied space of your choice that you can see within 60 feet. The summoned dragon is hostile to all creatures, and disappears after 1 minute or when it is reduced to 0 hit points.

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Vial of Dragonfire (Wondrous item, Uncommon)

The design for this vial was created by an ancient artificer, and it is strong enough to hold the breath of a dragon. While holding the vial, you can use an action to either open or throw it. When the vial is activated, each creature in the radius of its effect must make a DC 13 saving throw, taking 3d6 damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. The damage type and saving throw are determined by the contents of the vial. determined by the contents of the vial. If you choose to open the vial, the effect is unleashed as a 30-foot cone. If you throw the vial, you can throw it at a point of your choice that you can see within 60 feet; each creature within 20 feet of the chosen point is subject to the effect of the vial. For a randomly discovered vial, roll on the table below to determine the type of breath attack contained in the vial.

1. Acid (Dex. Save)

2. Cold (Con. Save)

3. Fire (Dex. Save)

4. Lightning (Dex. Save)

5. Poison (Con. Save)

If you are holding an empty vial and become subject to the breath attack of a dragon that would deal damage, you can use your reaction to try and contain the breath in the vial. If you succeed on the saving throw against the dragon’s breath attack, you successfully store some of the attack in the vial. If you fail the saving throw, the vial is overwhelmed, and shatters instantly.

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Standard Sleeper #2

Today’s Standard sleeper is one of the new Commands from DTK that I think has been totally and completely looked over and passed. Kolaghan’s Command is insane and deserves more respect and love than I think it is getting. All of the Commands in the set are good in their own way in that they each doing something good and powerful for their mana costs, which makes since as people have high expectations for Commands given their own Lowryn counterparts. People were going nuts when Ojutai’s Command first got spoiled, and while it didn’t turn out to be quite as good as people wanted, it was still a fair and playable one.

But then what is it about Kolaghan’s Command that is so good? We will work our way from the worst to the best mode. To start, we have the “Return target creature card from your graveyard” option. Not the most appealing effect, but at instant speed it is much more reasonable when tacked on to a second option, and EoT getting back a Rabblemaster or maybe a Heelcutter doesn’t seem all to shabby to me. Then there’s “Destroy target artifact,” probably not usually going to be relevant, but there’s going to be that one time you’re going to be able to use it to its maximum ability, and it’ll feel good. Then we have a Shock clause, or Wild Slash in this Standard I suppose. And we all know how much play Wild Slash is seeing because of all the 2 toughness creatures in the format, see anything from RDW, Seeker of the Way, etc.

And then we get to the big one “Target player discards a card.” Now this probably doesn’t seem too amazing, but trust me when I say that it is. Making an opponent discard a card at INSTANT speed makes so much of a difference compared to just a Mind Rot or Tasigur’s Cruelty. It can make your opponent have to totally change their plans for the turn since they will always lose a key piece of what they had. And if your opponent is topdecking and you do this at the end of their draw step then that’s just downright dirty.

Standard Sleepers #1

What’s up guys! Trying something new tonight. Today’s Standard Sleeper for the new environment is Profaner of the Dead! Now at first glance I’m sure this card doesn’t look like much. It’s basic stats make it a simple Hill Giant, which isn’t terrible in and of itself at least for limited purposes. But Exploit is an interesting and deceptively powerful mechanic. People are already learning the power of Sidisi, Undead Vizier and the Demonic Tutor on a stick.

But what specifically makes Profaner of the Dead so good? Well, there’s two popular decks in Standard that work off of little mana and swarming with many small creatures. Red Deck Wins and Jeskai Tokens are both very weak to this card. Red Deck Wins loses Zurgo Bellstrikers, Rabblemasters, Goblin Tokens, all that good stuff. The tokens deck loses simply everything, and those cards aren’t coming back.

The Curious Case of Narset Transcendent

Narset Transcendent was one of the most exciting and hyped card of all of Dragons of Tarkir. People were freaking out over this card saying how powerful she is and how much she was going to have an impact on Standard and Modern. Possibly even Legacy, even though that’s crazy because Legacy already has a 4-mana planeswalker that is leagues better than this one. But where does Narset actually belong in Standard. (We’re not going to get into Modern because anything like that would be too much of a stretch)

Since her release, there’s been two main decks that have utilized Narset, U/W or Ojutai Control and Esper Control. This seems reasonable as both of those decks play a large number of spells that would be totally reasonable to draw or rebound. But in this deck she still has her own number of problems. One of which is that she will rarely be played on turn 4 in any control deck, as she will usually end up dying very quickly, and since when has a control deck EVER want to be tapped out as early as turn 4? Sure it may be reasonable in formats where you can back her up with a good ol’ FoW, but really? No. And the other problem is that she, in a vacuum, will not when you the game. Yes, she will generate card advantage, which will help you win games that go long, but she herself will not win the game. To compare, think about Elspeth, Sun’s Champion, or Xenagos the Reveler, or even Kiora, the Crashing Wave. Simply stopping your opponent from casting noncreature spells isn’t going to win you the game most of the time as most decks in Standard are very creature based. So she doesn’t really fit in there all that well, and in the IQ I attended this past Saturday I was able to observe her in action in such decks, and she seemed very underwhelming, many of those decks were at the bottom tables.

So where else could she go? Well, the honest only other deck where she would seem at home would be Jeskai Tokens. Most of the creatures in the deck are made from noncreature spells and being able to have access to more of them is always a good thing. But that deck usually curves out at 4, and that’s usually for Stoke the Flames (or 8 for Treasure Cruise if you want to be picky, but you ever cast this for more than 3 it feels bad anyways). So is Narset really something that deck would want in the 4 mana slot?

What’s up followers, hope that everyone is having a good Friday and is placing First at their respective FNM’s, I know that I did. Today’s deck is brought to you by the biggest lady in Dragons of Tarkir, the one and only Dragonlord Atarka.

Now the first time that I saw Atarka, I didn’t think much of the card. I know that for Green and Red decks to get to 7 mana is not all that difficult to achieve, but it just seemed like there were so many better things that that deck could be doing with 7 mana. But then the other day I thought that she would be perfect for a whip deck.

So this is what I came up with. A whipped back Atarka will gain you 13 life if it goes unanswered, which is going to be a great swing of tempo in your favor. I felt that more than 2 would be too many for the deck, so I added some other 1-ofs that would be fun to whip back, like Atarka, World Render, Hornet Queen, and Meandering Towershell.

But wait? How can you afford to run all the one ofs? Singleton copies of things in a deck are normally awful, but good old Sidisi, Undead Vizier is going to be able to tutor you up exactly what it is that you want. I know that I’ve been a big advocate of this card, but trust me, it’s for a good reason.