Dragons of Tarkir Set Review: Mana and Utility

Hello and welcome back to The General Zone's Review of Dragons of Tarkir! If you missed any of the previous parts check out the links below.

Part 1: Legends
Part 2: Threats
Part 3: Answers

This is the final segment of the review and it will cover everything we haven't discussed yet, namely: mana producers and utility cards.

Mana is easy to define. If it produces mana, filters colors, or puts lands into play it is a mana card. Utility is harder to define. Utility cards expand the options for your deck, enhance synergy, or simply allow you draw or tutor through your deck. There are many different kinds of cards that fit into this category, so it is kind of a catch-all.


I was having a conversation recently where I completely panned this card, saying something like: "Why would you play an Overrun effect that doesn't win you the game?" The answer to that question is: if you weren't far enough ahead on board you just Overrun again next turn. It feels weird for me to endorse this card, but it gives you potential to win games that you have absolutely no business winning, especially in multiplayer.










For those of us who have been around for a while, or who play Cube regularly, this is a disappointment. You see, I remember the days when Impulse was considered to be the best (still legal) card in competitive Magic.

This does less for the same price, and the way the game has changed in recent years, that just isn't going to cut it. Impulse wasn't worth playing in Commander except in the most niche decks. Sadly, this more modern update has no reason to show up in any constructed format.









When I assemble a new Blue deck, I usually include Opportunity in the first draft. I WANT to play with this card. I just don't think that it is quite good enough to play with. The first part of my deck building process is to examine all options and give cards a chance that don't necessarily look good on paper.

This is an upgrade to Opportunity, however it is only a very small upgrade. Making it uncounterable is an upside because the card is very expensive; it can be tough to leave up protection for this card and cast it at the same time. Now the question is: how do we get a Dragon to go along with this?

There really aren't any Blue dragons that I am super-psyched about playing in competitive decks. There are of course the various Elder Dragon Legends that are perennial mainstays of the format, but I don't tend to think of those cards as standout hits. They are usually the sub-optimal Commander of a 'good stuff' deck.



Night Soil. Don't laugh, it works. It consistently makes a ton of tokens and it provides excellent crossover hate against Reanimate effects. Corpseweft provides much better value on the tokens: Removing two Creatures makes a 4/4 instead of a 1/1. That is a huge difference and something worth considering.

However, the main reason I would include Night Soil in a deck, and mind you that it would only actually happen in Pauper Commander, is that you can exile cards from the OPPONENT'S graveyard. If you are playing Black and you have a full yard, don't use this! Reuse, Recycle. Chances are that the actual Creature is better than a token.





One of my favorite Magic authors, Matt Sperling, described this as a modal spell, and I agree with his assessment.

Your options are: max this out and point it at someone's face to kill them.
Or: draw cards until you have eight in hand.

I have a lot to say about this card, but I am going to try and keep it short here. Drawing cards is good. Doing it more is the flat out best indicator of who is going to win a game of Magic.

Is this the best way to draw cards? Heck no! But that doesn't always matter. If you need a way to restock in the late game, this will do just as well as the next thing. If you run into this problem a lot, see also: Skeletal Scrying, Promise of Power, Necrologia, Necropotence, Ad Nauseum, Yawgmoth's Bargain, et al.




While you are on Gatherer looking up all those other cards I just talked about, make sure you stop by and say hello to Yawgmoth's Will. Still one of the best cards in Magic over a decade later. If you have never cast this it, shame on you. If you have never had it cast against you: it kind of feels like drinking ipecac syrup.

Let's discuss Trove: It is a seven mana card, so it had better come pretty close to winning the game on the spot and, quite frankly, this doesn't. You will almost certainly win the game, but it might take a bit. I am very excited to play with this card though, because it is just extremely powerful. It is going to be a staple of the format for years to come.






This will get played, but there are already half a dozen cards that do this exact same thing. They are all just about equally good/bad depending on how you look at them. I don't want to be the guy casting too many Creatures or the guy casting do-nothing invest-enchantments, much less the guy doing both.













This is probably the best Red card advantage spell since Past in Flames, but that doesn't mean it is good. Remember when I was saying just a moment ago that Damnable Pact was worse than a whole list of other cards that do the same thing? This card is worse than Pact. So what does that tell you?

If you are playing mono Red, you really don't have many options. The best card drawer in mono Red is Library. Red mages just have it tough. My advice: play Blue.







This is a worse version of Fervor and Pandemonium stapled together, but they had the decency to give us a deep discount on the cost in exchange for the restriction that it really only works with Dragons.

Is this good? Probably...? I have never seen a dedicated dragon deck that was what I would call 'good', however they certainly do exist so I expect this card to see some amount of play.










Red cards really are terrible. If this were Green, you could get any Creature. If it were Black it would have a lot more text that would end up telling you that you could get any card you want. Why can't Red have an unrestricted tutor? Give me one good reason.
















This card was named Battle Formation. They made a flavor-inappropriate change to the card just so that they could work ass into the title. Look at the card itself, not the name.

The art depicts a Dromokan army in front of one of THEIR cities. You don't assault your cities. You defend them. You assault someone else's city. Secondly, look at the soldiers. They are in a phalanx, a defensive formation. The whole Abzan/Dromokan philosophy is one of stout defense. The Mardu/Kolaghan assault. This card is just one big ass flavor fail.

I don't even know why someone would play this. Do you have a Doran deck, but don't actually have Doran in it? WELL, then do I have just the card for you...





This is not what I would call 'mythic'. The ability to Biorhythm people out will win games, but those are games you were probably going to win anyway. Recall that you already have a huge board when you activate the ability AND it takes a whopping 11 mana.

My main problem with Creatures that produce mana is that they will get killed incidentally. People cast Wrath effects. It just happens. It is going to happen about 10 times in a normal multiplayer game. You are so much better off casting Rampant Growth or Cultivate because the mana advantage will endure through a sweeper. Having your mana dorks killed is the worst because you fall behind on mana, on board, and in the card advantage race.




I am a long time listener of the Limited Resource podcast. Marshal Sutcliffe has quickly become one of the best EDUCATORS in the history of the game. His contribution to the community by developing strategy content rivals that of greats like Luis Scott Vargas or Mike Flores.

Marshal uses a system called "Four Quadrants" to evaluate cards. We determine how useful the card is in four different typical game situations, to help us decide how good the card is overall. The quadrants are: early game, parity, winning, and losing. I am going to apply quadrant theory to evaluate the next few cards, starting with Atarka's Command.

Early game: In the early game, your opponent probably isn't gaining a ton of life, attacking with multiple Fliers, or at 3 life. Putting a land in play is cool, but this is a more color intensive and demonstrably worse version of Explore in this scenario. So basically, it is horrible early on.

Parity: Again, the first two modes are pretty useless. They third mode is now also pretty useless because you likely have many lands in play and aren't constrained on mana. The fourth mode is better in this spot, but if you have a bunch of Creatures and your going to attack into the other guy who also has a bunch of Creatures just to use this combat trick...well you are probably not a very experienced player. There are so many ways that can go wrong. Also, this situation just doesn't come up very often because the best way to break a board stall is a sweeper, and chances are someone has cast one or will cast one within two turns. So, bad at parity.

Ahead: Pretty good when you are ahead on board actually. You can deal three to the face and likely get in 8+ damage by pumping your Creatures. An 11 damage burn spell is definitely worth two mana.

Behind: If you are behind late in the game this card does stone nothing. Not even one mode is going to help you stabilize the board, get ahead on cards, or regain the lead in a race.

So since this card is generally bad in three stages of the game and good in another, I would classify it has highly situational. I.e. bad most of the time. That is not a good result.

Now that we have the hang of it, let's power through the rest of the Commands!



Early: Poor. Early on, you are most likely using this to pump your guy and kill a Creature, which is fine, but not much better than any other removal spell.

Parity: This is excellent at parity. If they have a key permanent like an Anthem or God card, you can really get them. Killing a Creature and dealing with an Enchantment simultaneously is my kind of value.

Ahead: If you are ahead on board you are probably only going to get  value out of fighting, but not much else. Still, if your lead is big enough, you won't need much value to just win the game.

Behind: If you are behind, this really ins't great either. This is the most volatile situation, depending on the exact resources that you are behind on and the exact permanents that are in play, this could be good or bad. It is tough to tell.


The Fight mode goes a long way towards making this universally good. Removal is useful at just about every point in the game.



Early game: You might be surprised to hear me say this, but I like it quite a bit here. Destroying a mana Artifact and forcing them to discard an excess land is a great way to get ahead on mana. This card attacks multiple resources, which is a primary characteristic of quality disruption. It could also be the situation that you are killing a mana dork, which is also useful here.

Parity: This isn't going to bust your board stall wide open, but small incremental advantages are a good way to take over the game and prevent parity from ever occurring. If you get five or six 2-for-1's throughout the game, you are well on your way to winning. Also, the option to rebuy your best threat could easily give you control of the board.

Ahead: If you are ahead, this is probably at its worst, but it is still good. You get to dig up a Creature to help seal the game. Also, killing chump blockers or pesky Artifacts like Ensnaring Bridge will lead to quick victories.

Behind: For Kolaghan's Command, ahead and behind look very similar. Get back your best threat and hope that you can win with it. Whichever of the three other modes actually does something in the current game state, use it. That is the best value you can expect when behind.

So we have determined that you can use this to generate card advantage during all four quadrants. You can use it as removal in most of the quadrants. I would call this a standing ovation for a Black/Red card. Usually these kinds of cards suck pretty badly.




Early: This card is a little expensive for early game applications. However, counter a Creature and draw a card is very good as you move into the mid and late game, so I would say that this is good 'in transition'.

Parity: Oh yeah. Regardless of whether the board is empty or full, this card is FANTASTIC at parity. Card advantage is key here. Counter a threat, get a threat back from the bin is one of the absolute best plays in Magic.

Ahead: Again: counter + draw is excellent here. It is like to just win the game if you are significantly ahead. Aggro-control decks are founded on the principle that you can get ahead and stay ahead using cards like this.

Behind: Unfortunately, this doesn't max out all four quadrants. If you are behind, drawing and reanimating is probably your best bet, but I am not sure that will be enough to create parity. Certainly not enough to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

If 3 out of 4 is good enough to amend the constitution, it is good enough for you. Play it, like it.



Early: This card is too expensive to be a factor in the early game. Complete fail.

Parity: Killing a Creature and bouncing a permanent will unravel a knotted board. Bonus points for being able to answer a Planeswalker.

Ahead: Also good here. The Negate effect will prevent your opponent from doing all manner of scary things like sweeping the board, drawing a bunch of cards, or casting Bribery, et cetera.

Behind: The kung fu combination of killing a Creature and a Planeswalker is sure to make a dent in anyone's board. Will that be enough to dig you out of a hole? Probably not. The particulars of this card are just too conditional. The Creature must be small. Pdubs are common, but not AS COMMON as Creatures. Bounce spells are bad when you are behind and so are counterspells. Tough to call, but I would say that this is situational at best...in this situation.

This card scores pretty well on quadrant theory, the main problem though is the high cost. Each mode on this card costs two mana at most. Why does the resulting combination cost MORE THAN double? That is not a good cost/effect ratio. Honestly, I could see this card costing just UB. Is that really so broken?

In Scion decks, this is just another five color land. The ability to rebuy a card from your graveyard is balanced with the cost of not being able to cast non-dragon spells with colored mana. Is it great? No. Is it going to see play in a couple fringe decks? Yes.

Well, we finally made it to the end. In more ways than one. In case you missed the announcement last week, The General Zone will be merging with Commander Cast. This is our final set review friends. We have had a great run and are very excited to move on to this new and exciting frontier.

I have really enjoyed writing here on the blog and interacting with the community. I hope you will all join us as we migrate to our new home on Commander Cast.

That being said, what did you think of the review? How do you like the new cards? Do you have any good stories from the pre release? Leave it all in the comments below.

See you on Commandercast.com!

-GG