Tarkir: Dragonstorm’s Omen Cards Could Lead to Infinitely Long Limited Games

Last updated on April 5, 2025

Infinite Obliteration | Illustration by Yeong-Hao Han

Tarkir: Dragonstorm spoiler season is almost over, with just a couple more days of spoilers remaining. This means players can now begin painting a picture of how its Limited format might play out, as the following is known about the set:

• All of the mechanics
• Lots of commons and uncommons, including most of the 2c and 3c uncommon signposts
• Almost all of the rares and mythics
• Enough cards in general to see how each clan's cards form a cohesive whole
• Lastly, a pair of threads by Senior Game Designer Ben Weitz, who worked extensively on the set

One of the strangest features of the Limited set, though unlikely to come up all that often, is the way in which omens might drag out some games. Forever.

An “Omen” of Things to Come

One thing making Tarkir: Dragonstorm look bigger and grindier than it might otherwise be is the omen mechanic. Though the basic pitch is “modal dragons,” one quirk to the mechanic is that the dragon itself is shuffled into your deck if you cast an omen. This means a couple of things:

• Players will be a bit more likely to draw a dragon each turn for behold or other dragon payoffs.
• Players may top deck the same spell they just played, for better or for worse.
• Players are a bit more likely in general to draw gas in top deck wars, since omen is generally on fat fliers.
• Lastly, omen can lead to locked late game board states in niche scenarios.

The Omen Lock

We'll have to see how often this comes up, but one upside of omen is that it can prevent decking in really long games. Take Scavenger Regent as an example, which is among the best cards with the mechanic (especially at this specific thing). Here's the backdrop:

You play a super grindy Limited game with your opponent, trading off creature after creature and ending up in an unbreakable board stall. It looks as though you might even deck out, as you drew a few too many cards early and will deck before your opponent. You go to draw your last card and wait… it's that cool dragon you forgot about! You sweep the board with it, then shuffle it back into your deck.

Next turn, you'll of course draw Scavenger Regent again, meaning that unless your opponent can counter Exude Toxin, you will never deck and can keep sweeping over and over! Even for non-sweeper dragons like Riling Dawnbreaker, this is still a great way to prevent decking. The exceptions to this rule are dragons that draw a card from their omens like Dirgur Island Dragon and Marang River Regent, which will not save you from decking.

Will games actually go to decking regularly though? Probably (and hopefully!) not, as a mismatch in draconic might should quickly lead to one player dying. It's still likely to be a battlecruiser format either way, so it'll be very exciting to play it at the upcoming Prerelease. And if you feel a bit overwhelmed, worry not; we'll be back soon with a full Set Review and Prerelease guide before long!

The Real Purpose of Omens in Tarkir: Dragonstorm

Yes, omens can prevent decking, and yes, in a very small subset of games an omen vs. omen match-up might result in a locked gamestate where neither player can actually win or lose. However, their true purpose in the set is to provide a tool that lets you jam a bunch of expensive dragons without making a complete mess of a Limited format.

Ben Weitz offers some insights on R&Ds goals for this Limited format, and the specific tweaks they were making to achieve them. To summarize, they want everyone casting Dragons and playing three color decks. But how do you pull this off in practice? Weitz gave a couple of examples of cards that have been tuned to facilitate their desired gameplay loops:

Caustic Exhale is an exceptional Limited removal spell on rate that encourages you to play more dragons, yet also can't kill most dragons on its own.

Dirgur Island Dragon shows off the omen mechanic, which let's you put more Dragons in your deck by having them mimic common spell effects. This one is basically a modal blue Pressure Point, with the flexibility making up for the mediocre power level of both halves.

His last point in the thread touched on color identity, specifically R&D worries about giving green large fliers. To avoid this, most of the green dragons seem more oriented towards utility, with many of their omens being riffs on common green spells (this one is a Lay of the Land split card).

They Really Want You to Play Dragons!

Weitz' second thread dug into some more specifics around how they intend to get people to play dragons beyond just omens. There's a cycle of 3-color uncommon dragons, which Weitz says were pushed to be p1p1 level cards.

Sonic Shrieker does fit that bill nicely, as the rate here is excellent and reminiscent of Limited greats like Vampire Sovereign. It's both stronger and more flexible than the Sovereign though, as it either kill creatures or goes face to attack the hand. You're pretty much going to be thrilled either way!

The last card Weitz touched on is Breaching Dragonstorm, which is of course another ploy to get players to put dragons in their decks! The Cartouche of Solidarity cycle inspired these, as that kind of enter/return trigger seemed like a good fit for dragons. The effects were designed to be powerful enough that you only need to recur them once or twice to feel like you got paid off.

Tarkir: Dragonstorm screams “dragons” about as loudly as it can, though the omens add a nice quirk to the format, since they allowed the designers to stuff the set with even more top-end without sacrificing early plays. If that pays off and the sacrifice is that 1-in-1,000 games of Limited go to turn 500 in an endless loop of omens, that seems worth it. And hilarious.