The Temur Roar Precon Sucks, So I Fixed It With $25
Dragonstorm Commander precons have arrived and with it comes another round of my precon upgrades. We're going to do a thorough analysis of each deck, highlighting its goals and how well it accomplishes them, check out its deckbuilding fundamentals, identify its strongest and weakest cards, then use all that information to create an optimized $25 upgrade path and beyond!
Today we're talking about Temur Roar, a Blue / Green / Red "Stompy" deck that is focused on casting big creatures, specifically Dragons! Dragons go stomp-stomp, roar, cast lots of them and smash your opponents!
So if you want to get into a Stompy Dragons deck, is Temur Roar for you? While I almost always say "yes" to this question, this time it's more complicated.
The Stock List
Alright, first let's check out the stock list and see what we're working with:
Temur Roar is trying to be a sweet Dragon precon, a singular product that players can purchase and immediately have an amazing time casting Dragons at commander tables. Does it manage to feel like a Dragon deck? Well, I count 30 dragon creature cards + 2 cards that make dragon tokens (e.g. Dragonmaster Outcast) + 2 more cards that can turn into dragons (e.g. Sarkhan, Soul Aflame). I also count 16 cards that support dragons (e.g. Dragon Tempest). The deck also rewards general Stompyness, with 7 cards that reward you for playing big powered creatures (usually 4+ power).
So yeah, the deck definitely feels like a Dragon deck! So far so good, right? Now let's check the actual dragon cards included and -- oh. Oh no.
The Good
The precon has some specifically good things going for it:
The commander is absurdly powerful. Ureni of the Unwritten trigger lets you slap down 6+ mana dragons from your library straight to the battlefield whenever it enters or attacks. That means with haste you could cast Ureni, swing for 7 flying, and draw + put two more dragons on the battlefield. It's obscenely strong. The commander is so strong that it can essentially carry the entire precon on its shoulders. Personally I think this is TOO strong and bad game design because it can easily be too oppressive, but I can't deny that it's flashy and powerful.
The new cards are good. The ten new cards exclusive to the precon are all good. They all strengthen the deck's main theme of Dragons and add an extra focus on high power which is a bit redundant with Dragons but gives them some extra flexbility in also being good in other Stompy decks too.
SOME reprints are good. There's a few really good reprints of cards that have crept up in price, like Temur Ascendancy which has been steadily trending up, and Dragon-specific stuff like Dragon Tempest which people were buying into the Dragonstorm hype and I guess betting on not seeing a reprint here. But there's also a lot of really bad filler cards here, which I will get to!
The Bad
Alright, here we go, here's my opinion of the deck now that I've reviewed and playtested it: THE DRAGON REPRINTS SUCK!
Like I said, there's some good banger reprints here, like Dragon Tempest and Lathliss, Dragon Queen, staples you'd expect if you were running a Dragon deck. But my god is there a huge pile of trash fillers here: why the heck is Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge here? Leyline Tyrant is barely playable even in Mono Red, why in 3C? Stormbreath Dragon is old school cool that was great in Standard a decade ago but trash in Commander, and Skarrgan Hellkite is literally just forgettable filler! THEY EVEN HAVE Taurean Mauler JUST FOR FILLER!
There are also bizarre choices like adding subpar ramp pieces like Talisman of Creativity and Talisman of Impulse, which is downright insulting to Green Mages, as if they would play average mana rocks like the non-Green peasants. There ARE some good mana rocks worth running in Green, such as Dragon's Hoard, which becomes draw when you no longer need extra mana, but that's the only good one in the precon.
What self-respecting Green mage would cast this trash?
There's also another complaint I see floating around that this Temur deck is mostly Mono Red and I get that complaint, but considering its a Dragon deck and Dragons are heavily skewed to being Red, this makes perfect sense; Green and Blue are there just for support. It's like if you bought a Bant Angels deck and complained that the deck is mostly Mono White: Angels are White, and the other colors are there as support.
Fixing This Precon For $25
In my opinion, Temur Roar fails to deliver a fun and exciting Dragons deck. I'm not blaming them because I know they are on a budget, I know that good Dragon cards are expensive, and I'm 100% certain there's other restrictions they had that I don't even know about. I also don't think the deck is necessarily unable to compete with the other Dragonstorm precons -- in fact, I bet you it can hold up fine just because Ureni of the Unwritten is so strong. But with all that in mind, the end result is a disappointing precon, because there's so much uninteresting fluff in it. Nobody looking for a sweet Dragons precon is going to be happy drawing into Taurean Mauler, sorry.
Luckily we can drastically increase the power of this precon even on a budget, and here's how:
My main goal with upgrading this deck is to fix the major pitfalls most Dragon decks fall into:
- Fix the mana curve. A classic problem with Dragons is that all the obviously sweet ones cost 6+ mana, so naturally people shove all of them into the deck and call it a day. But the problem with this is if you have a deck that is a pile of 6+ mana spells then you're stuck basically casting a single spell each turn and not doing much else. It's super clunky! So we need to fix the mana curve, number one.
- Avoid the "win-more" mentality. The other problem Dragon players often make is that they want to have like 10+ big beefy dragons on the battlefield, so they tap out casting another big threat each turn and just kinda hope nobody can do anything about it. This is win-more mentality: the truth is that just having three dragons on the battlefield is often enough to secure victory, and once you've got that you're better off protecting your board and stopping your opponents from popping off instead.
First, let's add some good Dragons to the deck. While it's true we can't afford classic staples like Utvara Hellkite and Terror of the Peaks, we have access to arguably even more important ones: the adventure Dragons from Baldur's Gate and the omen Dragons from Dragonstorm. These are less flashy than the staples but are invaluable ways of adding cheaper utility spells into the deck without lowering your dragon count, so you can actually play the game at a normal pace instead of being able to cast a single spell per turn for the entire game because you're stuck with a full grip of 6+mana dragons.
Not all the omen/adventure dragons are good, but there's some amazing standouts like Bloomvine Regent and Marang River Regent for omens, or Dread Linnorm and Sapphire Dragon for adventures. Interaction and ramp for a reasonable mana cost is amazing!
For classic beefy Dragons I focused on the good stuff, especially ones with good ETBs like Terror of Mount Velus and Thunder Dragon since they are excellent candidates to cheat out with Ureni. I also splurged for Hellkite Tyrant and Firkraag, Cunning Instigator, they aren't great Ureni hits but their triggered abilities are so game-winning that it's worth adding anyway.
I also began overhauling the ramp package in the deck. We're in Green so there's absolutely no reason not to run the best land ramp available, and they're simply way better than mediocre dragon discount dorks like Dragonlord's Servant. There are three mana rocks that I very much like in Dragons though, and that's the "Dragon Orb Cycle" with being the best, haste is just too good. The other orbs are great too though, Lapis Orb of Dragonkind scry helps set up Ureni triggers and Jade Orb of Dragonkind is super underrated, the hexproof lasts until the your next turn, so you have a full turn cycle of your scary dragons being untargetable.
I've also increased the amount of interaction in the deck, with an emphasis on instant speed and/or cheap interaction. Dragons are inherently slow and paint a target on their head, so the more board wipes we can muster the better to slow down the faster deck and also prevent retaliation when we start swinging. There's a bunch of dragons added that come with wipes (Incinerator of the Guilty) but for instant and/or cheap we've got Magmaquake and Breath Weapon, both asymmetrical ways of clearing the board of smaller creatures at instant speed.
Now to protect our dragons we're splurging for Smuggler's Surprise, arguably the single best upgrade in the deck, you're saving it mostly for its last mode to give your stuff hexproof and indestructible but it also comes with card advantage and "ramp" as bonus. I also added two thematic countermagic, Smuggler's Surprise and Dispelling Exhale.
Ureni of the Unwritten is the best Dragon in the deck and our commander so I did add some cards that work particularly well with it. Since Ureni's trigger is both ETB and attack I've added a few ways to get extra value from it: blink spells like Essence Flux allow us to protect Ureni from targeted removal but also read "pay U, put a dragon into play at instant speed" which is ridiculous. Last Night Together is another extra combat and works very well with Ureni as you can attack, put a dragon into play, cast Last Night and swing with Ureni and that new dragon, probably GG after that.
$25 Upgrade
Here's what I'd add for $25:
And here are the cuts. I focused on taking out the mediocre ramp cards, so goodbye Nogi, Draco-Zealot and similar (except Sarkhan, Soul Aflame, this one is good because it copies dragon attack / damage triggers such as Ureni). I took out a TON of bad dragons and then also the weakest card advantage and ramp engines.
Put it all together and you get this new list:
By the way, with 25 Dragons in the deck you have a 91% chance of hitting a Dragon with Ureni of the Unwritten which is perfectly fine imo, I always shoot for 90% reliability.
Further Upgrades
Like I said, Dragons are super popular and super expensive, so there's a ton of great ones to splurge on for further upgrades, so here's a tier list of the best ones in my opinion:
- S Tier: Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm, and also a stronger commander too, so if you want more power just swap it with Ureni
- A+ Tier: Terror of the Peaks, Utvara Hellkite, Balefire Dragon, Twinflame Tyrant, Old Gnawbone
- A Tier: Blast-Furnace Hellkite, Ureni, the Song Unending, Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest, Hellkite Charger is very good IF you're running all the dragons that make mana when attacking aka Old Gnawbone / Savage Ventmaw etc.
- B Tier: Goldspan Dragon, Ancient Copper Dragon, Ancient Silver Dragon, Stormscale Scion, Wrathful Red Dragon (if combo with Blasphemous Act), Astral Dragon (if combo with Cursed Mirror), Themberchaud (A+ tier in decks with 15+ Mountains but unlikely here)
That's my priority list for the Ureni deck, feel free to disagree.
The rest of the upgrades are a mix of thematic support cards and goodstuff:
- Dragon support. Dracogenesis is great at vomiting out all the dragons and winning immediately, Sarkhan's Triumph is good in general but particularly strong if you are setting up a combo, Invasion of Tarkir I've found to be okay but not amazing here (it's better in "Dragon Tokens" decks like Feywild Visitor). Mox Jasper I don't think is worth running, but you can if you're all-in on the dragon theme.
- More triggers. Displacer Kitten is the single best blink card and works especially well with omen / adventure dragons. Roaming Throne is super obvious too.
- Better draw. The Great Henge is probably the single best "Elemental Bond" card in the deck
- Better mana. Add all the relevant fetchlands, shocklands, Ketria Triome, ABU duals if you got those, and then Three Visits + Nature's Lore to fetch them. Because our commander is a 7-drop and our creatures are so expensive, ramp cards that are a bit slower but drop multiple lands on board are very good here, so definitely add Open the Way if you have it. I'd also toss in Brainstorm, it's incredible with all the shuffling we do but also can set up Ureni triggers.
- Utility lands. Sink into Stupor, Otawara, Soaring City, and Boseiju, Who Endures are all S Tier utility lands and my top picks. I also love Homeward Path in Stompy lists because being able to Uno Reverse someone stealing your crap off a Rise of the Dark Realms or similar is priceless. Beyond that the other MDFCs Bala Ged Recovery, Valakut Awakening, Disciple of Freyalise, Glasspool Mimic, Pinnacle Monk, Hydroelectric Specimen, Bridgeworks Battle, Stump Stomp, and Kazuul's Fury are all high on my radar.
- Better interaction. Cyclonic Rift, Stubborn Denial
That's probably enough to get going.
Here's a sample deck list with a $500 budget using a bunch of these suggestions:
The only noticeable omissions in my opinion are the utility lands Homeward Path, Otawara, Soaring City, and Boseiju, Who Endures.
Two Down, Three To Go!
I believe Temur Roar was the most important precon upgrade to cover because 1) it's by far the most popular and 2) it has the most problems. So hopefully this helps turn the precon into something you're more happy with.
The last three precons are still coming, but to be completely transparent, precon upgrade guides get very few views compared to how much work it takes to do the article + video. I will probably make a shorter upgrade guide for the last three and no accompanying video, sorry!
