The Best Commons and Uncommons By Color for Tarkir: Dragonstorm Draft

Last updated on April 5, 2025

Twinmaw Stormbrood | Illustration by Tuan Duong Chu

Any new Magic set can be tricky to navigate at first. If you’re heading to your local store’s prerelease for your first Sealed event, or loading up your first draft on MTG Arena, then what cards should you be on the lookout for? I’ve shared my thoughts in my complete set review already, but today I’m going to summarize my thoughts and share with you my picks for the best commons and uncommons in the set, starting with commons.

Commons

White

#4. Riling Dawnbreaker

You really don’t expect your 5-drop dragons to be both good and 2-drops at the same time. Wait, what? Yeah, Riling Dawnbreaker is also just a 2-drop if that’s what you need. Flexibility is a key to great cards in Limited and this has it in spades.

#3. Fortress Kin-Guard

Fortress Kin-Guard is one of the best 2-drops in the set. Two creatures for 2 mana is always solid and if you happen to need the counter for deck synergies, then you can also do that.

#2. Osseous Exhale

You always need removal in your deck. There are some creatures that just need to be answered. Osseous Exhale is white’s best common removal spell in my opinion, and Stormplain Detainment would have been number five on this list too.

#1. Salt Road Packbeast

Two-for-ones are the name of the game and they rarely come as good as this. This set looks pretty slow, so board stalls are likely, and drawing Salt Road Packbeast when it costs 2-3 mana seems obscene. Or you can set it up pretty easily with tokens.

Blue

#4. Ringing Strike Mastery

One mana to cleanly answer quite a lot of creatures is pretty good. Your opponent will be able to untap their creature eventually, but almost never right away, letting you get a good attack in while it’s stunned. Ringing Strike Mastery is also a cheap play for flurry, so something that Jeskai will want to prioritize.

#3. Dispelling Exhale

Dispelling Exhale is a nice, cheap counterspell, which often acts as blue removal. I think you want to make sure your deck has dragons in it to support it in the late game, but you’ll often just snipe an early play and be very happy with the trade.

#2. Humbling Elder

The fact that Humbling Elder is 1 mana means a lot. You can swing a lot of combats in your favor for so little investment and still have an actual creature left over at the end.

#1. Sibsig Appraiser

Sibsig Appraiser may not gain life like some of its predecessors, like Priest of Ancient Lore or Inspiring Overseer, but a good 3-drop that draws you a card is incredible. It’s even your choice out of two, how could it possibly go wrong?

Black

#4. Worthy Cost

Black’s commons are pretty dull. I really wanted there to be something stronger than Worthy Cost to talk about, but I couldn’t see anything. Still, I’m sure this will be good in the format, you just need to set it up with token support and sacrificial fodder.

#3. Dragon’s Prey

This may be the dragons set, but 82% of the creatures in the set are not actually dragons, so Dragon's Prey still has plenty of targets for 3 mana. However, the dragons are all the biggest and best creatures in the set, so I don’t think you can afford too many copies of this.

#2. Kin-Tree Nurturer

Two creatures in one card is always great to see, and one of them even comes with lifelink. There are so many good token generators in this set and Kin-Tree Nurturer is one of black’s best options for that.

#1. Caustic Exhale

-3/-3 for 1 mana is an absurd rate. Even when you can’t support Caustic Exhale too well, it’s still perfectly fine at 2 mana. It turns out the set has a lot of incredibly powerful commons, so my early prediction of this being the best common might not pan out, but it’s definitely in contention.

Red

#4. Shock Brigade

Red’s commons are also Shockingly bad. I gave this and the next card a 3/10 in my set review. I stand by that since Shock Brigade only looks like an average 2-drop, but I don’t think anything else is even close.

#3. Summit Intimidator

I gave Summit Intimidator a low grade, but it’s an effect that I like a lot. Board stalls are common in slower formats and you need ways to get damage through, which this does enable pretty well.

#2. Underfoot Underdogs

I’ll say it again, so you say it with me this time. Two creatures in one card is always good! I especially like the unblockable ability on Underfoot Underdogs, allowing us to peck away through a board stall. There are also quite a few random creatures that really want to become unblockable that work really well with this.

#1. Molten Exhale

Four damage can kill 87% of the creatures in this set, without taking into account +1/+1 counters and the like. That’s quite a lot and for only 2 mana, meaning Molten Exhale is always going to be a good deal.

Green

#4. Snakeskin Veil

Snakeskin Veil has always been a decent card, but I think it gains a lot of utility in this format. Not only is there a counters-based archetype for this to synergize with, but you’ve also got a lot of big, powerful dragons that want to be protected.

#3. Sagu Wildling

In my opinion, this is the best common mana fixer in the set, other than the nonbasic lands. Sagu Windling will likely play out very similarly to modal double-faced lands, where it can be a land of your choice when you need it early, or a decent dragon when you don’t.

#2. Piercing Exhale

Piercing Exhale is green’s best removal spell (uncommons included in that too), so it’s going to be important to pick up. Green is also inundated with huge creatures, so it should be really easy to kill off whatever you need to.

#1. Sagu Pummeler

This is an interesting one. I could see being wrong about Sagu Pummeler, but I think this is likely going to be a sleeper pick. A big, efficient reach creature sounds amazing in a set with so many dragons, and the renew ability means it practically has flashback. It doesn’t look like a “best common” in most sets, but I think the context here matters and it will see a ton of play.

Uncommons

White

#3. Sunpearl Kirin

White has a lot of uncommons that would be worthy of this list, but I like Sunpearl Kirin the most. It’s a nice, cheap, interactive creature with a lot of play and flexibility. Plus, you can comfortably play it in any white deck.

#2. Static Snare

Static Snare is one of the set’s most efficient catch-all removal spells, so it has to make the list. It shouldn't be too difficult to make it cost as little as and it answers nearly everything.

#1. Rally the Monastery

Modal spells, while very flexible, often just have one great mode and two situational ones, but all three of these look great in their own way. I would have liked Rally the Monastery as simply a 4-mana spell, but it can often cost 2 mana and that sounds even better.

Blue

#3. Wingblade Disciple

While I have very little faith in flurry as a mechanic, Wingblade Disciple is the strongest payoff for it in the set. In fact, it's so strong that I don’t think you need much support for it at all. Most decks will be able to double spell at least once or twice in a game and this rewards you for it.

#2. Constrictor Sage

I feel like most big plays in this set will be dragons, but Constrictor Sage is more than good enough to compete with them. It has value as a Frost Lynx, value out of the graveyard, and everything in between. It’s just a lot of good value in one card.

#1. Bewildering Blizzard

You don’t have to do that much to sell me on a sweet draw spell. This set looks really slow, so we should have time to build up to 6-mana spells and casting Bewildering Blizzard sounds incredible. How many creatures will you be able to kill in combat with this? I’m aiming for at least three!

Black

#3. Unrooted Ancestor

Even with the hefty cost of sacrificing a creature, any creature that can easily become indestructible is just a pain to deal with. Unrooted Ancestor just eats blockers when it attacks and basically chump blocks two creatures at once on defense, because you can block one creature with this and another with the creature you sacrifice.

#2. Krumar Initiate

The ability to repeatedly create a token turn after turn is extremely powerful. Yes, it does cost mana and life, but this should be a slow format and Krumar Initiate represents a lot of potential card advantage over multiple turns, plus a very good way to spend your mana.

#1. Venerated Stormsinger

One of the most important pieces for the token/sacrifice strategy is something that rewards you for the tokens dying. Venerated Stormsinger is perfect for filling that role and just looks like an incredibly powerful card in its own right.

Red

#3. Shocking Sharpshooter

Mardu decks in particular are probably going to struggle to get all of their damage through against certain matchups. There are a lot of good defensive cards and a lot of big blocking creatures. Shocking Sharpshooter is a perfect card to guarantee that you’re getting some damage in, especially with your mobilize triggers.

#2. Channeled Dragonfire

There aren’t too many small creatures in this set, but Channeled Dragonfire is a very effective answer to any of them. It’s also not unreasonable to assume we can sometimes cast this and harmonize it in the same turn, so it even gets to take out bigger creatures too.

#1. Fleeting Effigy

Red’s uncommons are honestly quite embarrassing if Fleeting Effigy is their best uncommon. I gave it a high rating in my set review, but that’s very speculative. The key is that because this returns to your hand each turn, it makes it very easy to double spell each turn, enabling flurry. If that ends up being a good thing to do, then this is great, but I have my doubts about that.

Green

#3. Encroaching Dragonstorm

There are some green cards that I gave better ratings to than this, but I have this here purely because of how important it looks. Mana fixing is key in a set where all the best cards are multicolored. There are also a lot of very expensive spells that we want to be able to cast. Encroaching Dragonstorm solves both of those problems very well.

#2. Synchronized Charge

The black/green counters archetype looks like it has a lot of good things going for it, including how powerful Synchronized Charge looks. We’ve seen a lot of similar cards in the past that weren’t as good, but they couldn’t be cast twice, which really is the key here.

#1. Formation Breaker

I expected green to have some great uncommons, but they were mostly duds. It’s a shame given how many great commons it has. Formation Breaker is certainly a strong card, especially in black/green, but it’s not a slam dunk first pick and I did hope to see something like that.

The Rest

This set is heavily based on multicolor cards, so to round this out, here’s a few of my top picks from the multicolor and lands section of the set.

#6. Host of the Hereafter

I’ve already mentioned that I have high hopes for the black/green deck and Host of the Hereafter is one of the biggest reasons for it. The signpost uncommons are a little weak, but this one (and the next one) really stands out to me. This is a card that represents so many additional counters that it should overwhelm most opponents and must be answered.

#5. Hardened Tactician

Hardened Tactician goes so hard with mobilize creatures, it’s unbelievable. Most similar cards have a once per turn restriction of some sort and this has nothing of the sort. Just imagine attacking with Dalkovan Packbeasts and getting to sacrifice all three of its tokens to draw cards. This is how token decks will be able to match up to the slower decks in the format.

#4. Twinmaw Stormbrood

Out of all the uncommon omen dragons, Twinmaw Stormbrood stood out to me as one that is just that exceptional on both sides. Efficient removal and a huge flying dragon that gains you life. This is great, and secretly the best red uncommon.

#3. The Tri-Lands

I really can’t stress enough just how strong these lands are. They also serve as dual lands if you only want two of their colors. A potential strategy is to prioritize mana fixing early over most other cards, play all five colors, and just take the best of whatever is being passed to you. Powerful triple-colored cards are going to get passed by players who can’t play them and you can just pick them all up and go to town.

#2. Lie in Wait

This is one of the best triple-colored spells I’ve ever seen at uncommon. Three mana to straight up kill a creature and get something good back from the graveyard is nuts. Not only does Sultai always want Lie in Wait, but this is very easily splashable in Temur, Abzan, and of course, 5-color.

#1. Karakyk Guardian

This is the early contender for mythic uncommon (Lie in Wait is also in contention). You could easily print this as a rare and it would look reasonable. This combination of abilities is extremely powerful and it goes especially well with a lot of what Temur is trying to do.

Wrap Up

Host of the Hereafter | Illustration by Annie Stegg

I am really looking forward to this set. I basically had to skip Foundations and Aetherdrift due to workload, so I’m really excited to get back to regular drafting. What are you most excited for? Let us know on our socials!

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Until next time, take care of yourselves!