Tarkir is a world that many Magic: The Gathering fans are familiar with, owing much of its popularity to not only an engaging story and competitive design but also since it’s filled to the brim with all sorts of colorful Dragons.
That wouldn’t be too much of a problem, but those new Dragons are almost leaking out from Tarkir through Omenpaths, devastating planes that aren’t used to having nearly as many Dragons pouring in.
Before we get too deep into the details of Tarkir: Dragonstorm, let’s cover some quick details about the release of the set.
Prerelease events will have bundles tied to each of the three-color clans of Tarkir, with a seeded booster pack that have cards specifically from the clan you picked. If you can’t make it to a physical store for prerelease events, a similar structure will be set up on Magic: The Gathering Arena as well.
If you want to stay up to date all everything Tarkir has to offer, here’s all the dates you need to keep in mind:
- Previews Begin: March 18 (That’s today!)
- Full Card Gallery: March 28
- Prerelease Events: April 4-10
- MTG Arena Release: April 8
- Global Release: April 11
Who are the Clans of Tarkir?
The Abzan (White/Black/Green)
One of the five Spirit Dragons, each belonging to their own clan, Betor, Kin to All is an absolute powerhouse with a scaling ability that works with the Abzan clan by getting better the higher in toughness your creatures are. The way this Spirit dragon works is that at the top of your end step, Betor will check the combined toughness of your creatures.
- 10+ Draw a card
- 20+ Untap all your creatures
- 40+ Each opponent loses half their life, rounded up
She’s also a 5/7 so you’re pretty much already there at the first tier. Also, those effects are cumulative, so at 40 you actually get to draw a card, untap all your creatures, and each opponent loses half their life rounded up. Commander players are surely already salivating at the prospect of adding Betor to a deck with Doran, the Siege Tower.
We’ll highlight treatments a bit further on, but here’s another look at the Abzan spirit dragon:
The Jeskai (Blue/Red/White)
A Dragon with a goal of unity for Tarkir, Shiko, Paragon of the Way, is the leading Spirit Dragon for the Jeskai clan. Once she enters the battlefield, you get to exile a nonland card with a mana value of three or less from your graveyard. You can then copy it and cast the copy for free.
There are a ton of great three-mana cards you might want to copy, ranging from Temporary Lockdown to Shiko’s partner, the previously unveiled Narset, Jeskai Waymaster.
Sagas are back in Tarkir: Dragonstorm and our first look is with Rediscover the Way. Its a solid Saga, giving you two pseudo-Ponders, and then it lets you hit for a bit harder once you hit the third chapter. This is another spell you can re-cast with Shiko, adding to the Jeskai synergy. Each clan is getting its own Saga, so expect at least four more from the set.
The Mardu (Red/White/Black)
Rewarding a hasty approach to playing, this Spirit Dragon has a special ability exemplifying the Mardu perfectly. If a creature of yours has entered this turn and would deal damage, it deals twice as much instead. Neriv is one of the cheaper Spirt Dragons, sitting at just four-mana, and while it might not seem stellar, it could have some potential with any interesting enter the battlefield damage that could be floating around in the near future.
The Mardu also get their own special fancy enchantment with All-Out Assault. This five-mana mythic rare gives your creatures +1/+1 and deathtouch, and on the turn it enters, you get a bonus combat step, which is pretty darn good with an established board.
The Sultai (Black/Green/Blue)
Here’s our first look at Teval, the Sultai’s spirit dragon. This is notably the Commander Deck version of Teval, not the base set version. The Sultai look like they will still have a strong theme built around using your graveyard as a resource as evidenced by Teval’s abilities here.
The indestructible Kotis, the Fangkeeper is an interesting card. It is only a 2/1 Zombie Warrior, but it comes with an incredible ability. Dealing combat damage with Kotis lets you exile the top X cards of your deck, with X being the amount of damage Kotis dealt. If you have any spells with a mana value of X or less, you can cast them for free. Of course, that means you’re going to want to pump Kotis up with a few stat modifiers to really get some good free spells out of him.
Look who’s back! Sidisi, the Snake Warlock is still a Zombie but this time has a neat ability to bring back the dead herself. You can sacrifice creatures other than Sidisi to bring back a creature with a mana value equal to the combined sacrificed creatures’ mana values plus 1 straight to the battlefield.
The Temur (Green/Blue/Red)
The most expensive of the Spirit Dragons mana-wise, Ureni is a massive creature with a 10/10 stat line and protection from both white and black. Upon entering the battlefield, you get to have it deal damage equal to the number of lands you control to any number of creatures or planeswalkers your opponents control, so likely around 8-ish assuming you hard cast it.
Although not originally from Tarkir, Craterhoof Behemoth is back with a new card, shown here with the special Temur Clan border treatment, placing it both in Standard as well as in Pioneer for the first time. This card is a Commander all-star, so having it back in the hands of players will be interesting to see.
New Mechanics
Behold
Sarkhan can’t get enough Dragons, and with the behold mechanic, he’s ready to show them all off to your opponents. To behold a Dragon, all you have to do is pick a Dragon you have out in play or reveal one from your hand to get the effect.
In Sarkhan’s case, you can point to the Terror of the Peaks you have in play, or the Neriv, Heart of the Storm you’ve been holding on to from your opening hand.
Endure
One of the more prominent cards from the original Tarkir block was Anafenza, the Foremost, and though she didn’t survive through the time shenanigans, her spirit did. Endure comes with a number, such as 2 with Anafenza, and then gives you the option to make a 2/2 white spirit token or put two +1/+1 counters on Anafenza.
Flurry
Finally giving a name to having an ability trigger after casting your second spell in a turn is the Jeskai-themed Flurry mechanic, as seen on Equilibrium Adept. In this case, the Dog Monk gains double strike for the turn, which is fine enough on a 2/4.
Mobilize
Creatures with Mobilize will have a number associated with them, like 2 in Voice of Victory, and when that creature attacks, you make two tapped and attacking 1/1 red Warrior creature tokens. Which is really, really good! Unfortunately, those tokens do get sacrificed at the next end step, but that only seems fair since otherwise, it would be a bit too powerful.
Renew
Renew only works from the graveyard, and can only be done at sorcery speed but is nice as it gives your dead creatures something to do. You pay the cost and exile the card and get to resolve the effect, like Qarsi Revenant, which lets you add a flying, deathtouch, and lifelink counter to one of your creatures, which is pretty good!
Harmonize
Much like flashback, the harmonize mechanic lets you cast these cards from the graveyard, but you can tap a creature you control to reduce the generic mana cost by that creature’s power. Ureni’s Rebuff can go down to just one blue mana if you tap a creature with a power of five or more alongside it.
Omens
Dragons get their own special mechanic to go along with them called omens. Formatted much like adventures from Eldraine, omens function a little differently in that when you cast the omen side, you shuffle the card back into your deck upon resolution. Omens are generally cheaper than their Dragon counterparts, but that’s not always the case.
Hybrid Mana
Not necessarily a mechanic but hybrid mana makes a return in Tarkir: Dragonstorm. This lets you pay either the color mana on the symbol, or two generic mana in place of it. So if you’re in a Temur deck but really want to play Rakshasa’s Bargain, you can effectively cast this as a one green, one blue, and two generic mana spell instead of having to splash black in your deck.
Sieges
Back from Fate Reforged are a few Siege cards. These enchantments let you pick one of a few options when they come into play and then give you that ability. You can’t change your mind unless you play a new one or reset it somehow, so think carefully before picking. Sieges in this set are two colors, letting you bounce back and forth between clans.
Commander
Five new commander decks are coming with Tarkir: Dragonstorm, one for each of the three-colored clans. Each deck comes with two commanders, as is usual for the preconstructed decks, but one of the commanders is going to be a humanoid, while the other is a different iteration of the Spirit Dragons.
We know very little of the decks so far, other than the face commanders, but it is confirmed that the Temur deck is a Dragon-kindred deck so be prepared for that one to sell out quickly and make sure to grab a few copies of Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm now.
Card Treatments
There are quite a few card treatments to be found in Dragonstorm, so much so that it might feel a bit overwhelming. We’ve got:
- Borderless Clan cards
- Ghost Fire cards
- Which also can have a Halo foil treatment
- Borderless Reversible cards
- Feature a cute, almost chibi-like look to some of the most fearsome dragons
- Draconic Frames
- Dragon’s Eye Basic Lands
- Full art lands from Ron Spencer that are only found in Collector Boosters
Special Guests And More
The Ultimatums are back as the Special Guests in Dragonstorm, with new artwork from Dominik Mayer and a quote from each of the new Spirit Dragons. There are five total:
You can bet that Genesis and Emergent Ultimatum are going to be hot commodities so keep an eye out for those while you open packs.
Joining them are the enemy Fetch lands, which comes with some incredible art from a variety of artists. As if that wasn’t enough, there are two iterations of these five Fetches, with a new type of foiling called Dragonscale foils based off each Spirit Dragon and with new artwork. These are exclusive to Collector Boosters so good luck getting a playset.
As if that wasn’t enough, serialized cards are back too, with a brand new Mox card. Mox Jasper is a Dragon-based Mox that taps for any color, which you can only activate if you control a Dragon. It is a bit like Mox Amber that way, which is a card that shot up in price after staying fairly low for a while. Don’t worry, there are non-serialized versions of Mox Jasper in the set too.
Tarkir: Dragonstorm is setting itself up to be a powerhouse of a set, with some of the coolest-looking cards Standard has seen in a while. Dragonstorm might feel like the game is going back to form by going back to the familiar lands of Tarkir. Make sure you’re following Hipsters for even more Magic content soon!
Ryan Hay (he/him) has been writing about Magic: The Gathering and video games for years, and loves absolutely terrible games. Send him your bad game takes over on Twitter where he won’t stop talking about Lord of the Rings.