Reign of Dragons Upgrade Guide: 15 Easy Changes You Can Make

Lathliss, Dragon Queen | Background Illustration by Alex Konstad

Dragons captured my imagination at a very early age. I don’t know if it was the animated version of The Hobbit or that Mel Gibson movie Dragonheart that came first, or maybe Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, but something about these oversized, calamitous fire-breathing monsters really speaks to me.

And I’m clearly not alone in that. Just look at Magic: The Gathering’s obsession with dragons. There are new ones in virtually every set, and we now even have dragons on the face of a deck aimed at getting beginners into the game.

Today I’ll be doing my best impression of a rare candy and levelling up the Reign of Dragons Foundations Commander precon, giving it just enough of a nudge to power up what it’s doing. Which if I wasn’t very clear about already, is dragons.

Let’s make it reign, shall we?

Reign of Dragons Deck Overview

Upgrade Plan

I want to preserve the intent of Reign of Dragons, which is a budget-friendly, beginner-friendly Commander precon. That means I’ll avoid hyper-expensive cards as well as anything overly complex. I’m also soft-avoiding Game Changers. If you’ve got a Deflecting Swat or a Jeska's Will and you want to play it, by all means go ahead.

The goal here is to edge this deck into consistent Bracket 3 play. The Foundations Commander precons are very easily Bracket 2 decks, and these upgrades will give you a slightly better edge in a higher bracket, without pushing it up into Bracket 4. You’ll still be playing a beginner’s dragon deck, just a slightly more competitive one.

I’m also keeping Lathliss, Dragon Queen as the commander. I actually suspect that Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest is better, but I’m going to assume that people want to play with the face commander, in particular the big scary dragon that makes more big scary dragons. I recommend testing out Dragonhawk from time to time though to gain a feel for what it’s like to have card advantage in your command zone.

Magic: The Gathering Foundations Commander Deck - Reign of Dragons | 100-Card Deck + Accessories

• WELCOME TO THE MULTIVERSE—The perfect way to start playing Commander with your friends. Bring this 100-card deck to the table and square off against up to three other combatants!
• THRILLING MULTIPLAYER BATTLES—Battle your friends with powerful creatures and spectacular spells in Commander, Magic’s most popular multiplayer format
• RULE FROM YOUR THRONE OF TREASURE—Your reign over the table begins with Lathliss, who creates a dragon when a non-token dragon enters. Use treasure tokens and cost-reduction effects to send out your fiercest dragons early and drown the world in fire!
• FOIL LEGENDARY CARD—Every Foundations Commander Deck includes 1 Mythic Rare Legendary Creature card with a shiny Traditional Foil treatment to command your deck in style
• CONTENTS—1 ready-to-play Reign of Dragons Foundations MTG Commander Deck (100 cards), 1 deck box, 10 double-sided token cards, 1 strategy guide, 1 reference card

$54.95

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Universal Automaton

Suggested Cut:

This deck already comes packaged with Taurean Mauler as a way to teach the wonders of changelings. Universal Automaton is the cheapest changeling for this deck. It’s not a strong card in a vacuum, but it’s a 1-mana way to trigger Lathliss, or Scourge of Valkas, or Spit Flame. One mana goes a long way when you’re talking about a 6-mana commander!

Firespitter Whelp is the weakest card in the deck. We want cheap dragons, but we want them either to be very cheap, or actually do something useful when they’re in play.

The Fire Crystal

Suggested Cut:

I really want Ruby Medallion here, but it’s a pricey card, so I’m settling on The Fire Crystal, which gives you cost reduction, another haste enabler, and a mana sink that makes copies of your dragons. An all-around useful card for a high-curve mono-red deck like this.

Hit the Mother Lode is a top-end card we can easily trim. I’d rather just cast an expensive dragon than take a gamble on this. It’s an inconsistent card for a deck that needs consistency.

Desolation of Smaug

Suggested Cut:

This deck has probably one or two too many board wipes, so any sweepers I add will replace others. Desolation of Smaug will be mostly one-sided in this deck, and floating your board wipe into another dragon sounds awesome. This will feel “free” to cast a good chunk of the time, while also heavily shaping the boardstate in your favor.

Breath Weapon’s probably fine in a precon battle against some of the other Foundations Commander decks, but a 2-damage sweeper doesn’t make the jump to full Commander quite as well. It’s worth money thanks to Pauper, so it’s at least an easy card to dump off!

Sarkhan, Fireblood

Suggested Cut:

Planeswalkers can be intimidating, but I think Sarkhan, Fireblood is simple enough that it’s a good introductory planeswalker, and a highly thematic one for this deck. +1 to add 2 mana for dragons is huge here, and the other +1 is a nice way to filter cards and plays well with Spit Flame. You could try to get to that -7 as well, but one big lesson about planeswalkers you’ll learn quickly is that they die very easily.

Breaching Dragonstorm’s another randomized card like Hit the Mother Lode. I just don’t want to run the risk of spending 5 mana to flip into a mana rock or Lightning Bolt when I really just need something big on board.

Ganax, Astral Hunter

Suggested Cut:

This is a near-strict upgrade, since you get +1 toughness on Ganax, Astral Hunter. You only get one Treasure token upfront compared to Rapacious Dragon, but you’ll match that on your very next dragon and surpass it as more of them hit the board. You can ignore the “choose a background” text on Ganax.

Small note: I chose not to add Draconic Visitor to this deck, partially because it’s a new-set mythic, but also because it creates an infinite combo with Ganax. You could try running them in the same deck; just know that you’re firmly in Bracket 3 at that point.

Gathering Stone

Suggested Cut:

Gathering Stone covers two bases for this deck: much-needed cost reduction for your large dragons, and card draw, though you’re not guaranteed a card every turn.

The cost reduction is a huge selling point over Outpost Siege, which is respectable but slow. Count on Luck fits this deck well, and you don’t need a bunch of these sorts of incremental card draw effects. Seems like an easy 1-for-1 swap with the Gathering Stone.

Wrathful Red Dragon

Suggested Cut:

I’ve been purposefully slotting in upgrades that lower the overall curve of the deck, but some of these dragons need a glow-up that warrants a more expensive card. You’ll get way more mileage out of Wrathful Red Dragon than Thunderbreak Regent, the latter of which, in my experience, basically doesn’t even have an ability. This new 5-mana dragon makes engaging in combat with your creatures very punishing, and you can pull off some game-ending plays with mass-damage effects like Chain Lightning and Blasphemous Act.

Stormscale Scion

Suggested Cut:

Stormscale Scion is a true dragon lord. It’s maybe a touch more complex than I’d like for a beginner-level upgrade, since storm can get a little messy, and you have to track your token copies somehow. But it’s worth it as a dragon that pumps all the others, and sometimes comes in multiples if you can cast another spell first.

I’m cutting Goddric, Cloaked Reveler. It certainly says “dragon” in the textbox, but I’d rather my cards just be dragons than have to fulfil some condition to become one. Nogi, Draco-Zealot at least provides a benefit to your other creatures.

Stormshriek Feral

Suggested Cut:

It’s funny to suggest Stormshriek Feral because it’s not exactly an all-star card itself, but it’s a meaningful upgrade to Thrill of Possibility within these low-to-mid-tier Brackets. Turning this sort of card filtering effect into an on-theme creature is a nice way to increase your dragon density without sacrificing other effects. I’d look to make this immediate swap and then upgrade Stormshriek Feral to something even more powerful in the long run.

Mega Flare

Suggested Cut:

Mega Flare is a solid removal spell in Commander, provided you’re able to stick a large creature in play. With kicker, you’ll even guarantee you have something large enough to take a creature away from each opponent. That sort of scaling interaction is perfect for multiplayer, and who better to add to a dragon deck than Bahamut himself?

You can envision a world in which Mana Geyser lets you drop a couple expensive cards at once, but I’m not sold here. You usually want X-spells or huge mana sinks with Mana Geyser, and I don’t consider Magmaquake and Lathliss’s ability enough. I’d pocket the Geyser for my collection or some other deck.

Sarkhan’s Triumph

Suggested Cut:

I’m assuming the precon shipped without Sarkhan's Triumph because they wanted to limit tutoring for complexity reasons, and because excessive tutors push you up into higher brackets. It’s still a massive upgrade to the deck without pushing the boundaries on tutoring. Fetch whatever dragon you need for the situation, and do so at instant speed to give yourself the most information possible.

This deck is swimming in 3-mana ramp, to the point where you can cut back on a mana rock or two. Commander's Sphere is questionable for a mono-colored deck, so that’s the first one I’d drop. I don’t mind that they put it in the deck since I’m assuming it’s just a way to get a copy into new players’ collections, but it’s nothing special here.

Sarkhan’s Unsealing

Suggested Cut:

This is slowly becoming a Sarkhan deck, isn’t it? Dragons is sort of his M.O., in case that wasn’t obvious. Sarkhan's Unsealing is a bit of a sleeper in decks with big creatures. Even if you’re not triggering the full 7-power mode often, you should be hitting the 4+ threshold a lot, which gives you some solid board control in longer games. And when you do trigger the full effect, you should be very far ahead on board.

As mentioned, this deck ships with a few too many board wipes, so I’m comfortable cutting The Elder Dragon War. It’s not terrible, but I like the catch-all red sweepers over this 2-damage effect. Read ahead technically makes this a 4-mana 4/4 dragon if you need it to be, but that’s just not all that exciting, and it doesn’t benefit from your dragon-related cost reducers.

Valakut Awakening / Valakut Stoneforge

Suggested Cut:

Modal Double-Faced Cards (MDFCs) are marginally complex for new players, but I’d recommend getting used to playing them because they’re an important part of mana bases in casual Commander. Valakut Awakening lets you sneak a card filtering spell into your mana base for minimal opportunity cost, and you’ll be glad it’s not a basic Mountain when you’ve got a hand lacking lands or spells and really need to reload.

Vandalblast

Suggested Cut:

Vandalblast is one of red’s best staples in EDH, one you should at least have for your collection, if not this deck. Board wiping creatures is necessary, but handling a board full of other permanent types matters, too. I bet that’s why they didn’t include it here: It really beats down on the Keen Engineering deck if you’re playing head-to-head with these precons.

I’m cutting Dragonstorm Globe for the same reason as Commander's Sphere. This precon went way too heavy on 3-mana rocks, and the upside on the Globe is very minor. Turning 4/4 fliers into 5/5 fliers isn’t as impressive as it sounds, and you’ve got plenty of ramp from other sources.

Bolt Bend

Suggested Cut:

I’m a big Bolt Bend believer in decks like this. It’s hard not to have a 4+ power creature unless you’re hopelessly mana screwed, and Bolt Bend’s redirection effect gives you some strong protection that red decks severely lack. This can fight against counterspells, removal spells, or even occasionally steal a beneficial effect from someone else. Just do your best to keep up while you’re holding it. If you can, delay casting Lathliss for a turn so you can protect it with your Bolt Bend.

Minion of the Mighty is way too ambitious. It requires you to have already cast at least one or two big things for pack tactics to even work, plus you need something else worth cheating into play, plus your Minion’s likely going to die if it ever attacks. All that with the downside of being a complete blank if your opponents handle your larger threats. No thanks, I’ll pass on the kobold.

Other Considerations

My swaps all take price points into consideration, with the most expensive among them being around $5, and most under a dollar each. If budget’s not a consideration for you, I highly recommend Terror of the Peaks, Ruby Medallion, and Roaming Throne as mega-upgrades. And if you’re okay upping the Game Changer count, Deflecting Swat and Jeska's Will are excellent in pretty much every red deck.

I also omitted Invasion of Tarkir because of complexity issues with battles, but it’s an easy swap if you understand the card type or just want to try one out.

The Final Deck and New Cards

Above you’ll find the upgraded decklist, and below you’ll see all the upgrades in isolation. If these spark joy, you can click the shopping cart button to buy the full list of upgrades over on TCGplayer (you can remove individual cards from the cart or add to it once you’re there).

Commanding Conclusion

Lathliss, Dragon Queen | Illustration by M. Matsumoto

What can I say? Dragons are just kind of cool. That’s not a knock against zombies or angels, or anything else going on with the Foundations Commander decks, but I just think dragons are about as close as you can get to a fantasy slam-dunk if your goal is to attract new players to your game. Imagine first-generation Pokémon without Dratini, or The Hobbit without Smaug.

Reign of Dragons is a totally competent deck out of the box. It’ll be good for some repeatable Bracket 2 gameplay with the other decks, and it accomplishes its goal of appealing to new players without going overboard on price or complexity. But even first-time Commander players will want to take it to the next level after a couple games, and hopefully this upgrade guide has given you some inspiration.

Are you picking up any of the Foundations Commander precons? How are you upgrading those decks? Let us know in the comments below or over in the Draftsim Discord. And check out The Daily Upkeep newsletter to stay up to date on all the latest MTG news.

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