Tarkir: Dragonstorm Uncommon Paves the Way for the Future of Red Ramp

Last updated on March 19, 2025

Sunset Strikemaster | Illustration by Zara Alfonso

Tarkir's dragonstorms are shaking things up everywhere in the MTG multiverse – and as revealed yesterday in the official Tarkir: Dragonstorm Debut stream on Twitch, “everywhere” even includes Magic's color pie.

Behold Sunset Strikemaster: a no-strings-attached, unconditional mana dork… in red!

Illustrated by Canadian artist Zara Alfonso, this red creature isn’t just a pretty picture: It’s a signal of a bold new direction for red in the MTG color wheel.

Something Old, Something New

Llanowar Elves | Illustration by Chris Rahn

Sunset Strikemaster is what's known in MTG slang as a “mana dork” – for those of you that may be new to Magic (welcome, by the way!), mana dorks are creatures that can be tapped for mana, pretty much like lands.

Green cards are the undisputed masters of mana creation in general (what in MTG lingo is known as “ramp“), and mana dorks in particular. Llanowar Elves, which is as old as Magic itself and has been around since Alpha, is the poster dork, but there are many, many, many green mana dorks.

Red does get a mana dork from time to time, but they tend to be conditional. That is to say, you need to jump through some extra hoop, like with Aetherdrift‘s Endrider Catalyzer (requiring Max Speed), or like with Bloomburrow‘s Brazen Collector (requiring you to attack), or very often by providing a one-shot mana boost via treasure tokens, like with Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer.

What's rocking the MTG boat now is that Sunset Strikemaster is an entirely unconditional (other than tapping) red mana dork:

WotC's Senior Game Designer Ben Weitz, quoted above, is not 100% correct, though. This is not brand-new space for red: Sisters of the Flame, from The Dark, is a bona fide, no-questions-asked mana dork:

But Sisters of the Flame is so old (and unplayably bad!), that Weitz' assertion is true in practice. 

Red’s Mana Journey: From Bursts to Balance

Gilded Ghoda | Illustration by Alexandre Honoré

As Ben Weitz notes in their tweets: “Red has been a mana color for a long time… Its mana production has been temporary and bursty.” The catch? Bursty mana can lead to clunky gameplay: Either you’re flooding the board early or sitting on an empty tank when the game drags on.

Recent “mana dork with extra hoops” designs, like Endrider Catalyzer or Brazen Collector, tried to address this, but they still left red polarized – great when ahead, but not what you want when you're behind.

“We wanted to give Red cards that can function from behind, and that can be more defensive,” Weitz says.

According to Weitz, Sunset Strikemaster changes that. By offering a no-strings-attached mana dork, red gains a tool that works defensively and supports longer games.

This isn’t about stealing green’s crown as the ramp king, though!

They stressed that it’s about giving red smoother, while still interactable mana options.

As the Tarkir: Dragonstorm Debut stream emphasized, red ramp needs to be easy to interact with, hence the focus on creatures (which are easier to remove) rather than artifacts or lands.

Is This a Color Pie Break?

Short answer: No, Sunset Striker it is not a color pie break.

Long answer: It’s an evolution, not a fracture. If you go strictly by the latest MTG Mechanical Color Pie article then no, red should not get permanent mana production (while it's the undisputed king of temporary mana). But that article is from four years ago; Magic has changed, and the color pie shifts with it, giving red some tools to keep up with the other four colors.

Mark Rosewater, Magic’s Head Designer, confirmed this shift on his personal blog right after Sunset Striker was revealed. “We’re letting red have more access to [mana dorks]. Not as good as green, but better than red had,” Mark wrote, and in a second post further confirmed that red mana dorks are a conscious shift.

It remains to be seen how far WotC wants to push them. When trying to improve white card draw, MTG went from the likes of Priest of Ancient Lore to Inspiring Overseer and then Esper Sentinel, so we'll see when they draw the line in power level for Sunset Striker‘s siblings.

Think Big!

Sarkhan, Dragon Ascendant | Illustrated by Billy Christian

Notably, the MTG community – which is quite adept at yelling “Heresy!!” when they sense the pie has been disrespected – seems pretty happy with this red mana dork.

In particular, many players are chanting “Big… Red! Big… Red! BIG… RED!!“, hoping that red mana dorks will let them build red decks that focus on the longer game and let them drop big, scary things.

Imagine that: Tarkir letting people play with dragons!