by Johnny Cycles, April 11th, 2025

Tarkir: Dragonstorm is out and there are a ton of cards I can’t wait to play! So why am I choosing Sarkhan, Dragon Ascendant as my first one? Well, he just so happens to synergize with one of my favorite Dragons deck and one of my favorite cards…

That’s right, baby! Mono Red Dragons in Modern is back! I was super impressed with the deck when I played it back in May of 2024, even if Magda, the Hoardmaster did not do much more than draw out a kill spell from our opponents on her way to ramping us a little. But that’s okay! As I discovered then, a Mono Red Midrange deck with decent ramp can compete in Modern.

But now we have another 2-drop value creature that can ramp us in Sarkhan, Dragon Ascendant or help pump out some 4/4 Scorpion Dragon tokens!

Here’s the deck:

Decklist – Mono Red Dragons with Magda, the Hoardmaster

by Johnny Cycles
Format: Modern

Creatures (22)

4 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
3 Magda, the Hoardmaster
4 Sarkhan, Dragon Ascendant
3 Atsushi, the Blazing Sky
4 Magmatic Hellkite
4 Glorybringer

Spells (8)

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Strike it Rich

Artifacts (3)

1 Lavaspur Boots
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Shadowspear

Enchantments (4)

4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker

Lands (23)

1 Arena of Glory
2 Cavern of Souls
1 Cori Mountain Monastery
4 Field of Ruin
12 Mountain
4 Urza’s Saga

Sideboard (15)

2 Claim the Firstborn
1 Haywire Mite
1 Pithing Needle
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Rending Volley
3 Meltdown
2 Pyroclasm
3 Molten Rain

Deck Tech

Primary Game Plan

You can read about my first Mono Red Dragons deck here. Like that deck, ours is a 3-pronged approach. The TL;DR of the two that remain unchanged is making Treasure tokens to flood the board with 4/4 Scorpion Dragon tokens or to grow our Constructs from Urza’s Saga. With the addition of Sarkhan, Dragon Ascendant, we have 6 different ways to make Treasures.

As to the third line of attack that is new to my Mono Red Dragons deck…we’ve replaced the super fun combo of Stingerback Terror and Terror of the Peaks with another new card from Tarkir: Dragonstorm – Magmatic Hellkite. In a world of Eldrazi and greedy mana bases, I’m excited to see this new Dragon in action!

We could leave Terror of the Peaks in the deck, to be honest, but I’ve replaced it with Modern’s best Red Dragon – Glorybringer. Sometimes it’s just right not to mess with perfection. Glorybringer is such a powerful threat thanks to its haste and ability to kill a creature the turn it comes down. Sure, Terror of the Peaks has more upside if we untap with it, but in Modern, we can’t expect to untap with it too often.

Rounding out our Dragon package is Atsushi, the Blazing Sky, a card I’ve tried and tried to make work. Its flexibility in either leaving enough Treasures behind upon death to make a Scorpion Dragon or digging us for more threats makes this deck one of its best homes. In previous practice matches, I simply didn’t draw it enough to get a sense of its competitiveness. Hopefully this time will be different.

Let’s Talk about Sarkhan

Ideally, we will play this on turn 2, behold a Dragon from our hand, and make a Treasure. Then, on turn 3, we’ll play one of our 4-drop Dragons, grow Sarkhan, and either blow up a land or force our opponent to answer Atsushi, the Blazing Sky to our benefit.

If we draw Sarkhan, Dragon Ascendant in the late game, then hopefully we’ll have a Dragon on the battlefield to behold in order to add to our Treasure count. At this point, we’re usually in the business of sand-bagging as many Treasures as possible until we find Magda, the Hoardmaster or Urza’s Saga.

Let’s Talk about Magda

My experience with Magda has been hit or miss (mostly miss). A Mono Red Dragons deck like this one is not overly well-positioned to trigger the Dwarf Berserker on our turn and our opponent’s turn on a regular basis. Rather, a Rakdos build full of cheap interaction is better suited to get the most value out of Magda.

That being said, our addition of Magmatic Hellkite gives us one more way to trigger Magda, the Hoardmaster on our turn. Glorybringer, too, can gain us a Treasure when we exert it.

Furthermore, I’ve added a single copy of Relic of Progenitus to give us some maindeck hate against Graveyard decks, as well as a way to get a Treasure on each of our opponent’s turns.

All said and done, nearly every card can make us a Treasure, either on its own (like Strike it Rich) or in conjunction with Magda, the Hoardmaster (Lightning Bolt and Field of Ruin, for example).

Land Destruction

Speaking of Field of Ruin, alongside Magmatic Hellkite, we have 8 ways to blow up non-basic lands. Throw in 3 copies of Molten Rain in the sideboard, and our deck should be able to pivot to attacking our opponent’s resources when the time is right. Note, we aren’t playing Blood Moon, since we’re playing Urza’s Saga.

Sideboard

I won’t lie…I’m kind of giving this my best guess. Being in Mono Red limits our options quite a bit. We have very little enchantment hate, for instance. We also have no great way of dealing with Psychic Frog or the graveyard. To answer the former, I’m trying out Claim the Firstborn. At best, we’ll steal it, attack and draw a card, then Lightning Bolt it. At worst, we’ll steal it after our opponent has grown it out of reach of our burn spells, attack for a lot, and possibly close out the game.

To help against graveyard strategies, we have a second copy of Relic of Progenitus to bring in. Rending Volley comes in against Boros Energy and the Frog. Pyroclasm is for Energy and the random Goblins deck I seem to run into. Meltdown is a bit tricky, as we’re in the artifcat business, as well. My thought is that when we need it, we’ll play around it or accept losing our own artifacts as the price of stabilizing or turning the corner.

Finally, I’m trying out the above-mentioned Molten Rain to help against Eldrazi and greedy mana bases, as well as a means to transform our deck into a more land-hate, Ponza-style deck.

Notice I’ve cut one of my favorite sideboard cards, Brotherhood’s End. I hope I don’t regret it.

Match 1 vs. Amulet Titan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL_rX7KyYCc

Match 2 vs. Mono Black Sibsig Ceremony

Match 3 vs. Boros Taxes

Match 4 vs. Eldrazi Tron

Match 5 vs. Grixis Inquiry

Overall Record: 3-2

WOW! What a fun deck! Our record is about what I would expect, while also not telling the whole story. Our first few matches all saw multiple mulligans due to mana shortage. In one game, I mulled to 5 and each hand only had a single land. Unbelievable. Still, we were able to overcome our mana screw for the most part and pull out the victory.

Boros Taxes was a tough match-up that we technically weren’t able to finish, as our opponent scooped the match early. I’m counting it as a loss, as that’s where things were heading in my opinion. We may have won the second game in two turns, thereby forcing a game 3, but our opponent was drawing so many cards with their blink shenanigans that it seemed unlikely.

Eldrazi Tron, meanwhile, is a match-up for which we have ample hate, both in the main deck and the sideboard. I see us winning as much as losing there, but some unlucky draws and a slow start in game 3 left us with the L.

Grixis Burning Inquiry, meanwhile, got robbed, as we topdecked our single copy of Relic of Progenitus in game 1 to steal the win. So, the luck all evened out!

Now, what about the deck?

I can’t emphasize enough how much fun this deck was to play! The Treasure token plan in a Mono Red Midrange deck featuring three of Modern’s most powerful cards (Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Urza’s Saga, and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker) and backed up by Dragons is a recipe for fun and success!

Even despite a terrible misplay with Magda, the Hoardmaster, we got to make a Scorpion Dragon token and win. For me, that’s already enough to count this deck a huge success!

Meanwhile, Sarkhan, Dragon Ascendant did exactly what we hoped it would in ramping us on turn 2, then chipping in some damage as the game went on. It feels like a great addition to the deck.

Magmatic Hellkite, however, was by far the MVP of the deck. Modern is full of big mana decks and greedy mana bases and we were able to max punish several of them in multiple games. Land destruction had a brief time in the sun with Gruul Ponza back in the early 2010s, but it hasn’t really seen much play since. One of the chief problems with it is that cards like Stone Rain and Molten Rain aren’t very good in the late game if your opponent has been able to weather the storm or stick an early threat.

Magmatic Hellkite solves this problem by being an evasive beater. Early or late, we’re happy to resolve this Dragon, as, at worst, it gives us a clock, while at best, it prevents our opponent from playing Magic while also giving us a clock. In our game against Amulet Titan, we survived multiple resolved Primeval Titans largely because we were able to destroy the value lands that let the deck win out of nowhere. What a card!

Urza’s Saga was not as powerful as I remember it being last year. It could’ve been due to the match-ups, but we hardly ever made Construct tokens and we never won with them. However, it’s ability to tutor up our silver bullet artifacts, particularly Shadowspear, allowed us to stabilize and turn the corner more than once.

As to the sideboard, I liked nearly all of our choices, but I could see tweaking things a little bit. Meltdown would’ve been better had we played Affinity, but I could see going to two copies of it to make room for another Haywire Mite or other mana artifact.

Conclusion

I never thought I’d like a Dragons deck more than my Gruul Dragons build, but this Mono Red deck is quite possibly more fun…and more powerful. Our ramp plan with Treasure tokens allows us to play hard-to-deal-with threats that bring extra value beyond lowering our opponent’s life total. Our 1- and 2-drop creatures are almost always must-kill. And Urza’s Saga allows us to tutor up silver bullets. Finally, our main-deck land destruction both punishes the big mana decks and janks some greedy mana decks out of the game.

Overall, if you enjoy Midrange and playing some of Modern’s best cards in support of Dragons raining fire down from the skies on your opponents and their creatures, then give this deck a try!

It. Is. So. Much. Fun.

As always, thanks for reading and watching. Let me know in the comments what you think of the deck. How would you tweak it?