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The Queen of Evil Dragonkind, Tiamat is one of the strongest Dragon commanders inMagic: The Gathering. It was released in Magic’s first-ever crossover set, Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, where every card was taken from Dungeons & Dragons.
As a commander, Tiamat is all five colors, allowing you to play any legal card ever released. There have been a plethora of both Dragon and five-color support cards over the years, giving Tiamat Commander decks a ton of toys to play with. If you love casting Dragons and attacking with evasive creatures, then Tiamat is a great choice of commander.
Minion of the Mighty
Rivaz of the Claw
Scion of the Ur-Dragon
Terror of the Peaks
Ureni of the Unwritten
Rhythm of the Wild
x3 Forest
x3 Mountain
Unclaimed Territory
Woodland Cemetery
The decklistcontains one planeswalker, 36 creatures, six sorceries, five instants, 11 artifacts, six enchantments,and34 lands. The deck is heavily creature-focused hence the high amount of them, with the rest of the cards either ramp, removal, or Dragon support cards.
Key Cards
Tiamat
One of the strengths of a Tiamat Commander deck is thatTiamat isn’t required for your deck to function. Instead, Tiamat actsas a consistency card that lives in your command zone. When it enters, you get to tutor for any five Dragons, allowing you to search for your most important ones to get them into your hand as quickly as possible.
Normally, your commander getting removed is problematic. However,Tiamat almost wants to be removed, as it will allow you to keep using its enter the battlefield trigger. Ultimately, it’s better as an attacker, but don’t worry about keeping it protected if it’s ever targeted for removal.
Call The Spirit Dragons
Call the Spirit Dragons doesquite a bit for any Dragon deck. Itsprimary use is making all your Dragons indestructible. This allows you to attack more recklessly with them, as well as use them for blockers without having to worry about any combat tricks your opponents have up their sleeves.
Alternatively,Call the Spirit Dragons can act as an alternate win condition. The requirement to win means you only need five Dragons on the battlefield, something Tiamat decks can easily do. Even if you don’t win with it,it still provides +1/+1 counters to make your Dragons even better attackers.
A creature that is multiple colors counts as all of the colors it is. However, for the purposes of Call the Spirit Dragons' effect, you choose one color for it to represent. For example, a Gruul (red/green) Dragon can be used either as a red Dragon or a green Dragon.
Fist Of Suns
A lot of the Dragons in the deck have a high casting cost, multiple that cost over five mana. Fist of Sunsallows you to cast these Dragons for a cheaper cost. You do need to use one mana of every color, but the deck can easily make your lands every land type to make this even easier.
Thestrength of Fist of Suns comes from when Morophon, the Boundless is on the battlefield. Morophon makes all your Dragons discounted by one of every mana color. Since Fist of Suns lets you pay one mana of every color to cast your spells, this pairlets you cast Dragon spells for free.
Rith, Liberated Primeval
Rith, Liberated Primeval is a great support card for all your Dragons. Bygiving all your Dragons ward, it makes them much harder to remove. It forces another two mana to be spent on any of your Dragons, disincentivizing your opponents from even trying to use targeted removal and effects on your Dragons.
The extra ability tocreate Dragon tokensfor any excess damage dealtis great too. This helps you flood the battlefield with extra Dragons if your opponents manage to chump block any. This gives you an extra Dragon to block with during your opponents' turn, as well as triggering any enter the battlefield triggers.
How To Play The Deck
A Tiamat Commander deck isfocused on playing a ton of Dragon creatures and swinging in for big amounts of damage. Nearly every creature in the deck has flying, so unless your opponents also have creatures with flying (or reach), your attackers won’t be able to be blocked for explosive combat steps.
Your mana curve is very high, so ramp is incredibly important. You want to get your mana rocks down as quickly as possible so that you’ll have mana to work with. Chromatic Lantern is one of the best ones, as this will make your lands all land types so they can tap for any color.
While your spells cost a lot of mana to cast,there are multiple ways to make them cheaper. Fist of Suns makes all your spells cost one mana of every color, Dracogenesis lets you cast Dragon spells without paying their mana costs, and Monster Manual lets you put a creature onto the battlefield for just two mana.
Theprimary win condition for a Tiamat Commander deck is winning through combat. Dragons generally have flying and high stats, making them fantastic attackers, especially with the various stat boosts the deck provides. Youcan also win through burn damagewith cards like Terror of the Peaks and Dragon Tempest.
You can also win the game through the alternate win conditions found on Call the Spirit Dragons by putting +1/+1 counters on five Dragons with its effect, or by controlling twenty or more artifacts during your upkeep while Hellkite Tyrant is on the battlefield.
Thebiggest weakness of a Tiamat Commander deck is its speed. Dragons cost a lot of mana, so early game, you’ll more often than not have an open battlefield. Ramp can help, but ultimately, you’ll still be having a slow start. Since Dragons are known for their late-game strength, youmay be targeted before you ever play a creature,since your opponents will want to take you out of the game before you become a problem.Be prepared to be the public enemyduring the course of the game.
