Fill the graveyard, return with zombie druids. That’s the core mechanic of MTG Tarkir: Dragonstorm‘s Sultai Arisen Commander Deck – and in action, the process is an absolute blast. Very swiftly, this deck has shot up my mental rankings, settling in beside the Lord of the Rings Sauron Commander Deck (The Hosts of Mordor) and the Fallout Mothman Commander Deck (Mutant Menace) as one of my all-time favourite pre-cons.
I’ve become fairly picky since I began my journey through MTG in mid-2023. Perhaps it was that Sauron was just so good that I became a snob afterwards, but there’s only been rare pre-cons that have caught my eye over the last few years.
There are plenty that stick out. One day, I’ll get around to upgrading the Cavileño Blood Rights Deck with some cooler vampires. I also had great fun experimenting with Olivia’s Most Wanted Deck from Outlaws of Thunder Junction. But the Sultai Arisen Commander Deck stands above them all, and it’s the first deck in a long time to get my brain wheels turning.
During a launch event for this MTG set, I played in a pod where everyone happened to choose one the five clans of Tarkir: Dragonstorm – Sultai, Abzan, Mardu, Jeskai, and Temur. While other decks frankly felt a bit more powerful than the Sultai, I found its core mechanics and synergy were very sleek, and easy to wield, with cards that naturally bounced off others for buffs and graveyard summonings.
As with the other Commander Decks, there are two options for Commanders: Kotis, Sibsig Champion and Teval, the Balanced Scale.
Teval, the Balanced Scale is a good option for a few reasons. It’s a flyer, which is mightily important when playing against other MTG Tarkir: Dragonstorm sets (as you’d expect, all the dragons have flying). Teval also allows you to mill cards into your graveyard every time it attacks, and when this happens, you may grab a land card from your graveyard and put it on the battlefield, tapped.
As someone quite used to missing land drops at inopportune moments, or milling cards and accidentally removing lands I desperately needed, this ability is fantastic. There’s no more dread when you mill the “wrong” card, because you know you’ll be able to get it back eventually.
As an added bonus for this attack, mill, play a land sequence, whenever one or more cards leave your graveyard, you’re able to spawn a 2/2 black Zombie Druid creature token. So a single attack may get you a returned land, and a Zombie Druid.
Kotis, Sibsig Champion is a secondary, but still great option. This Commander lets you cast a creature spell from your graveyard once during each of your turns, exiling other cards from your graveyard and paying its other costs. As an additional effect, whenever you’re able to liberate a creature from your graveyard, Kotis gets two +1/+1 counters.
Read: MTG Tarkir: Dragonstorm – Everything new coming to MTG
While a slightly less powerful card than Teval, I ended up choosing Kotis for his ability to rescue creatures from the grave – and despite not being able to block some flying attacks due to a lack of dragons, I found he was a solid choice. (There is Wonder in this deck, and as long as it’s in your graveyard and you control an island, all your creatures have flying – but I didn’t manage to draw this.)
It was all in the synergies, and particularly the loop of being able to buff Kotis by returning creatures from my graveyard. The entire deck is all about milling and returning cards to the battlefield, and if you play your cards right, you can end up in a loop where Kotis is consistently being buffed, to the point of being overpowered.
In my first turn, I managed to draw and play Gravecrawler. While it’s not a powerful creature, that’s by design. Its job is to die and/or enter the graveyard, and then be consistently recast (although it can’t block, so you’re reliant on targets, sacrifices, and board wipes). As long as you control a Zombie, you may play this card from the graveyard for its mana cost.
A few turns later, with Gravecrawler in the graveyard, I played Kotis. Because I then had a Zombie card, I could recast Gravecrawler. Because Gravecrawler was played from my graveyard, Kotis was buffed by two +1/+1 tokens. There’s a bunch of other cards with similar synergy – ones that let you mill cards into the graveyard and then return them, with the effect buffing Kotis by two +1/+1 each turn.
Another useful card in this equation was Reassembling Skeleton. This two-mana creature can be played normally, or returned from the graveyard for a separate two-mana cost. While it comes in tapped, its ability to consistently return significantly buffs Kotis. If you’re clever about it, and your opponents don’t thwart your plans, you can end up in a loop of reassembling and disassembling this skeleton for consistent +1/+1 gain.
Elsewhere, there’s some really neat land-based mechanics in this particular MTG deck. While many of the mechanics benefit Teval more than Kotis, there’s some sick enchantments and sorceries with widespread impact here.
Crawling Sensation is particularly powerful. This card lets you mill two cards at the beginning of your upkeep. It also lets you create 1/1 green Insect creature tokens whenever one or more land cards are put into your graveyard from anywhere, for the first time each turn. So with the card, you can mill (if you choose) and if you mill a land, you’ll get an Insect. With milling being such an important part of this deck, you’ll quickly wind up with a horde of creatures – which should prove very annoying for your opponents.
There’s also a Cultivate in this deck, and while the artwork is still hilarious, it does let you grab more land cards, which should help with playing some of the deck’s more powerful creatures and sorceries (there’s a handful of 7+ mana cards).
Another thing I quite liked about this deck is there’s a lot of targeting spells that should help to blast away opponents. There’s a Necromantic Selection for a creature board wipe, and a Casualties of War for destroying creatures, artifacts, enchantments, lands, and planeswalkers. Lethal Scheme also allows for a targeted attack, as does Putrefy. So if you’re feeling a bit mean or vengeful, you’ve got options.
In all, that’s what I feel the MTG Tarkir: Dragonstorm Sultai Arisen Commander Deck does best. It’s a very varied deck with a bunch of unique mechanics packed in, but they’re all looped in together, with synergies that make sense, and have a good flow of logic.
It’s also very well-themed, both its commanders are great choices, and its streamlined systems mean it’s simple and ultra-satisfying to pick up and play. While I’ll need some time to tweak and refine my approach – and possibly to upgrade the deck when I’m ready – I can see this becoming a real favourite of my arsenal.
MTG Tarkir: Dragonstorm Play Boosters, Collector Boosters, and the Sultai Arisen Commander Deck were provided by Wizards of the Coast for the purposes of this review.
