The 10 Best Dragon EDH Decks in Magic Ranked

Last updated on April 30, 2024

Tiamat | Illustration by Chris Rahn

There are a range of different creature types in Magic. Some simply exist because they’re the best descriptor of a given card but don’t really fit into a larger group in any meaningful way. Other creature types have consistent themes and powerful interactions within their type that make it smart to play them together. One of the more powerful creature types to build a deck around is dragons.

Much like their fictional counterparts, dragons in Magic are incredibly powerful creatures. Some can deal out massive amounts of damage like Terror of the Peaks while others have effects that can easily help win you the game like Old Gnawbone. Dragons are also represented pretty well across all five colors and can fit a variety of different themes.

When it comes to building a dragon Commander deck, there are a few things you’ll need to keep in mind. You’ll want to make sure your commander’s color identity isn’t too restrictive and stopping you from playing some of the better dragon cards. Because there’s such an abundance of dragons, you’ll also have to recognize which dragons work best with which commander and make the right cuts.

Let’s take a look at some of the best dragon builds for Commander to give you some inspiration for your own dragon deck!

What Are Dragon Commander Decks in MTG?

Sarkhan's Triumph | Illustration by Chris Rahn

For today’s purposes, I’m considering dragon Commander decks to be dragon typal decks specifically. There are some dragon commanders like Korvold, Fae-Cursed King that are incredibly powerful, but work best with other themes besides dragons. Decks built around those types of commanders won’t appear on this list, as it’s focused specifically on dragon-themed decks.

I also want to specify that, while these are some of the best commanders to build around and the best themes/subthemes for this type of dragon deck, some of these builds could technically be better. I tried leaving off insanely expensive cards like original dual lands or Gaea's Cradle to show how these decks can still work without them. That said, adding cards like this into these decks can make them even better.

#10. Vrondriss, Rage of Ancients

Vrondiss, Rage of Ancients | Illustration by Svetlin Velinov

Vrondiss is an interesting dragon commander because it’s the only non-dinosaur creature in Magic to use the enrage mechanic. Vrondiss makes you extra dragons each time it’s hurt and gives you an interesting method of purposefully doing damage to it. This means that a subtheme that you’ll want to include is dice rolling.

The most obvious cards to include in a Vrondiss deck are cards that are both dragons and allow you to roll dice. Chaos Dragon for instance has you roll a die each turn, giving you a chance to create at least one token for free with Vrondiss. The ancient dragon cycle gave you some really good dragons, including Ancient Copper Dragon and Ancient Bronze Dragon that work nicely in this deck.

Cards like Terror of the Peaks and Dragon Tempest are also cards that are very powerful in a Vrondiss deck. While you’ll see both in many dragon decks, they do extra work when you’re consistently dropping 5-power creatures for little to no mana with your commander. This on top of the dragons you’re playing normally adds up to a lot of damage.

This deck also includes some generally good dice-rolling cards like Delina, Wild Mage and Wyll's Reversal. These cards won’t necessarily play into your dragon theme, but they will interact well with Vrondiss.

#9. Goddric, Cloaked Reveler

Goddric, Cloaked Reveler | Illustration by Jason A. Engle

If you’re looking to make a mono-colored dragon deck, red is usually the way to go. While there are certainly good dragons in other single-color identities, red seems to have the highest volume of good dragons and good support cards for them.

Goddric, Cloaked Reveler is one of the most recent commanders to come out that focuses on dragons, but it was pretty obvious from the moment it was spoiled that Goddric would make for a good dragon typal build. In fact, its good synergy with dragons even led some fans to think it must be Sarkhan in disguise.

A lot of dragons have what’s known as a fire-breathing ability, or the ability to pay red mana to increase their power. Goddric has one that increases all your dragons’ power instead of just its own. To help make the best of this ability, Goddric decks want a good number of dragons that can all be buffed at once.

Dragons can be expensive, so having ways to get more of them for less mana can make it easier to go wide and make the most of Goddric’s buff. Dragonlord's Servant and Dragonspeaker Shaman can help reduce casting costs, while Minion of the Mighty can help you skip paying for your creatures altogether. While they won’t help you cast dragons, Dragonmaster Outcast and Lathliss, Dragon Queen can generate free Dragon tokens, again giving you more dragons to attack with and buff.

A Treasure subtheme can also work well with a Goddric deck, which is why this deck includes dragons like Ganax, Astral Hunter and Goldspan Dragon. Non-dragon Treasure support like Xorn will also help you build up your own little dragon hoard of Treasures. This will allow you to cast your big creatures quickly or pump a ton of mana into Goddric for a big buff.

#8. Morophon, the Boundless

Morophon, the Boundless | Illustration by Victor Adame Minguez

Morophon, the Boundless usually comes up when discussing typal decks. This is especially true for creature types like dragons that are represented across all five colors of Magic. Morophon’s cost reduction can be especially helpful when casting powerful 5-color dragons like Tiamat, The Ur-Dragon, and Scion of the Ur-Dragon.

This deck is built to include some of the best multicolor dragons available because the more color pips on a creature, the less Morophon makes them cost. Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm for example doubles up any dragon you cast, while Teneb, the Harvester can help you get some of the best creatures in any graveyard onto the field under your control. Both of these powerful dragons only cost 3 generic mana while Morophon is on the field, giving you a serious advantage.

This deck also includes Fist of Suns and Jodah, Archmage Eternal thanks to the unique way they interact with Morophon’s cost reduction. Both cards give any of your dragons an alternate casting cost of . Then, Morophon reduces those cards’ cost by , meaning you can cast any dragon in your hand for free.

This deck also takes advantage of being in all five colors to put in some great Commander staples like Rhystic Study and Teferi's Protection which can do well in pretty much any deck.

#7. Rith, Liberated Primeval

Rith, Liberated Primeval | Illustration by Victor Adame Minguez

Rith, Liberated Primeval is a good dragon commander for a few reasons. First, the protection this commander offers your dragons is very helpful in keeping them on the battlefield. With a lot of dragons casting 4+ mana, you can’t really afford for them to be instantly removed and set you back. Rith’s second ability allows you to focus on removing threats while also building up an army of token creatures.

Damage spells that do more than enough damage to take out most creatures are especially good in this deck. Dragon's Fire takes advantage of the fact that you’re running a lot of dragons, and since most of them have high powers, it can likely deal excess damage. If you can cast a damage wipe like Blasphemous Act or Star of Extinction, then follow up with Rith, you'll be rewarded with another Dragon token. Toralf, God of Fury synergizes well with these types of cards, allowing you to also deal a lot of damage to your opponents after wiping the board.

Cards like Frontier Siege that allow your creatures to fight your opponents' are another good way to eliminate threats while making dragon tokens. Because your dragons are likely some of the biggest creatures on the board, you can safely fight others. Even if you trade creatures with an opponent, you’ll replace the one you lost with a token, giving you the advantage.

#6. Lathliss, Dragon Queen

Lathliss, Dragon Queen | Illustration by Alex Konstad

Several of the best dragon Commander decks have commanders that generate dragon tokens. Others have a fire breathing ability that affects all your creatures. Lathliss, Dragon Queen has both of those abilities, and therefore all the benefits of both.

Similar to Goddric, this Lathliss deck uses cards that can help generate Treasure like Atsushi, the Blazing Sky and Goldspan Dragon. These Treasure tokens can help with activating Lathliss’ fire breathing ability. They can also be used to cast big game-winning spells like Insurrection.

Molten Echoes is a way to get even more value out of each dragon you play aside from just the token Lathliss makes. This card also synergizes well with Dragon Tempest and Terror of the Peaks by essentially doubling up any ETB damage from creatures you play.

#5. Rivaz of the Claw

Rivaz of the Claw | Illustration by Joshua Raphael

Rivaz of the Claw has a lot of powerful abilities that work well in a dragon deck. Having a mana dork that can tap for multiple colors of your choice in the command zone can itself be very helpful toward having a more consistent game. Being able to get dragons out of your graveyard also gives you a second chance if an important creature is removed.

There are other powerful dragons in Rakdos that also interact with your graveyard. Bladewing the Risen can also return dragons from your graveyard, and without the stipulations that Rivaz has. Ebondeath, Dracolich and Boneyard Scourge can both bring themselves back from the graveyard. These combined with your commander can prove to be too much for opponents who will likely run out of removal at a certain point while you still have access to your threats.

Cards like Buried Alive and Entomb can essentially serve as tutors in this deck since you’ll be able to cast dragons from your graveyard. Rivaz’s ability also means that board wipes like Blasphemous Act won’t be as big of a deal for you to recover from. Black also has one of the best board wipes for a dragon deck, Crux of Fate, which usually ends up in your favor if you choose non-dragon creatures to destroy.

#4. Tiamat

Tiamat | Illustration by Chris Rahn

I’ll be honest, when Tiamat was first released, I was a bit disappointed in the card. As a big D&D fan, I was hoping the mother of chromatic dragons would have had a splashier effect. However, while it isn’t super exciting, Tiamat’s ability can be very powerful. I mean, you’re essentially getting 5 tutors along with a massive flying creature, so you could definitely do a lot worse. I also like that Tiamat is a 7/7, similar to the original Elder Dragons that birthed the Commander format.

Because all Tiamat does is find dragons, a Tiamat dragon deck is basically just built around including all the best dragons from all five colors. You’ve got great mono color dragons from across the color pie from Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon to Ancient Gold Dragon. There’s also some of the other good dragon commanders in here like Scion of the Ur-Dragon and Rith, Liberated Primeval.

Morophon, the Boundless makes sense in this deck, since it reduces the cost of most of your creatures, and there are several 5-color dragons like Niv-Mizzet, Supreme and Tiamat itself.

Apart from your dragon cards, there are also good support cards for dragons like Sarkhan, Soul Aflame and Nogi, Draco-Zealot.

#3. Scion of the Ur-Dragon

Scion of the Ur-Dragon | Illustration by Jim Murray

Scion of the Ur-Dragon’s activated ability is powerful for two reasons. First, it allows you to instantly get any dragon from your deck essentially on your field for a turn for only 2 mana. This can be especially impactful if you turn your commander into one of the ancient dragons or a dragon like Old Gnawbone that has a powerful combat damage trigger, but it can be hard to pull off when hard casting it.

The other reason Scion of the Ur-Dragon’s ability is so powerful is that it opens up the opportunity for you to cheat out big dragons. Using cards like Reanimate, Unburial Rites, or Animate Dead allows you to get the dragon you searched for out of the graveyard for a fraction of its original casting cost.

With all the reanimation spells in the deck, Sneak Attack is another good way to cheat out big creatures. First use Sneak Attack to get the card out for a turn, then after it’s sacrificed you can bring it back with a reanimation spell. This makes it much easier to play big dragons like The Ur-Dragon.

#2. The Ur-Dragon

The Ur-Dragon | Illustration by Jaime Jones

One of the main reasons I initially found Tiamat to be a bit of a letdown is because Magic already has the perfect 5-color dragon commander in The Ur-Dragon. Similarly, The Ur-Dragon deck includes some of the best dragons in Magic, but with a commander that has some better effects.

The Ur-Dragon’s triggered ability only gets better and better the more dragons you get on the field. It also makes it very easy to consistently drop more dragons on the field for no mana. Having an eminence ability is also very nice, especially one that reduces the cost of most of your creatures.

There isn’t too much difference here from the Tiamat build, though you do have some higher mana value dragons like Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund since you’ll likely be able to cheat it out.

You also have some high mana spells like Last March of the Ents and Kindred Dominance. When you aren’t pressured to spend mana on playing creatures, thanks to the Ur-Dragon’s triggered ability, you’re freed up to spend more mana on these big spells that can have a major impact on the game.

#1. Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm

Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm | Illustration by Kekai Kotaki

Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm won’t give you access to every dragon like other commanders will, but it more than makes up for that with its ability. Giving you two dragons for the price of one not only allows you to build a threatening board state quickly, but the token copy is a perfect target for pod effects.

Adrix and Nev, Twincasters gives you even more token creatures each time Miirym’s ability is triggered, and its ward ability helps to keep it safe. I honestly think it’s one of the most overlooked token doublers, mainly because not as many token decks use blue. With all these extra dragons, Dragon Tempest and Terror of the Peaks will be even more effective in this deck than in others.

Sneak Attack is also a great addition to this deck. Though you’ll have to sacrifice the original creature, you’ll get to hold onto the copy. You can also sacrifice the original to one of your pod effects before the end of the turn.

Speaking of pod effects, apart from Birthing Pod itself, this deck also has Prime Speaker Vannifar and Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast as ways to sacrifice your clones to find even more powerful dragons. Since Miirym’s triggered ability is on ETB, not cast, the dragon you get from your pod effects are also cloned by Miirym. This gives you either more sacrifice fodder for further podding or just two very powerful creatures to work with.

Wrap Up

Sivitri, Dragon Master | Illustration by Livia Prima

It’s hard not to like dragons in Magic. There are so many of them that regardless of your favorite color or playstyle, there’s probably at least one or two that you really enjoy. When it comes to making dragon decks, there’s a good variety of different builds you can choose from and a host of good commanders too. This makes dragons one of the most unique and versatile creature types in the game and a blast to build an EDH deck around.

Which build is your favorite? Do you have other dragon commanders you enjoy playing with? Do you think Magic will ever top the 5-color dragons they have now? Let me know in the comments or on Draftsim’s Twitter/X.

Thank you for reading and see you next time!