by Johnny Cycles, March 8th, 2026

Lorwyn Eclipsed may not be Magic’s latest set, but it does feature Magic’s latest mythic Dragon! Spinerock Tyrant is the first 5-mana 6/6 mono Red Dragon since Hunted Dragon, released in Ravnica: City of Guilds back in 2005.

That’s more than 20 years.

So when I talk about power creep needing to show up in Dragons, this is what I mean. For more than 20 years, Wizards has been unwilling to power up 5-mana creatures the same way they’ve been eager to power up 1- and 2-drop creatures. As if resolving a hasty 6/6 flying Dragon with additional text would totally ruin the game, while printing cards like Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Ajani, Nacatl Pariah won’t warp the entire format…

There are a total of 5 Dragons that cost 5 mana and have power and toughness of 6. Two or version of Niv-Mizzet and cost one of each color, while the last is Teval, Arbiter of Virtue.

Sigh.

So, not only is Wizards reluctant to power up Dragons, they are still inclined to give them major restrictions, should their power level creep up. Hunted Dragon gives your opponent an equal amount of power and toughness in the form of 3 2/2 Knight creature tokens. The two Niv-Mizzets are both extremely mana restrictive, requiring a whole deck to be built around them in order for them to be playable. Teval, meanwhile, is similar, if to a lesser degree.

The end result is that nearly every mythic Dragon Wizards prints is stone-cold unplayable outside of Commander (and occasionally Standard).

Unless you’re me.

Here’s the decklist I’m working with for Spinerock Tyrant.

Decklist – Rakdos Dragons with Spinerock Tyrant

by Johnny Cycles
Format: Modern

Creatures (23)

4 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
4 Orcish Bowmasters
2 Magda, the Hoardmaster
2 Sarkhan, Dragon Ascendant
3 Decadent Dragon
4 Magmatic Hellkite
4 Spinerock Tyrant

Spells (11)

4 Fatal Push
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Thoughtseize

Artifacts (3)

1 Lavaspur Boots
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Shadowspear

Lands (23)

2 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Cavern of Souls
3 Field of Ruin
3 Mountain
2 Raucous Theater
3 Swamp
4 Urza’s Saga

Sideboard (15)

2 Meltdown
1 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction	p
1 Vexing Bauble
2 Price of Freedom
2 Pyroclasm
2 Sheoldred’s Edict
3 Tokka & Rahzar, Terrible Twos

Deck Tech

Primary Game Plan

We are looking to manage the early game with some of Modern’s best and most efficient answers and threats. Thoughtseize, Fatal Push, and Lightning Bolt belong in the first group, while Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Orcish Bowmasters fill out the second. As we execute this aspect of our game plan, we’re hoping to make our land drops and ramp a little via Treasure tokens gotten from Ragavan hits or our 2-drop Dragon support cards, Sarkhan, Dragon Ascendant and Magda, the Hoardmaster.

From there, we want to start sticking threats. Magmatic Hellkite, Decadent Dragon, and Spinerock Tyrant make up our beatdown package, though each brings with it something useful. Magmatic Hellkite takes out a problematic land. Decadent Dragon can be cast for its adventure side to steal some cards from our opponent, while its creature side makes Treasure tokens. Finally, Spinerock Tyrant turns all of our instants and sorceries into double the fun.

Secondary Game Plan

Magda, the Hoardmaster gives us an alternate line of using our Treasure tokens to make 4/4 Scorpion Dragons. We have 11 ways of making Treasure tokens, so it’s unlikely we’ll flood the board with Scorpion Dragons, but it does allow us to pursue our primary game plan, while accruing resources to stick this 2-drop and immediately make a 4/4 flier.

Tertiary Game Plan

That’s right! We’re an Urza’s Saga deck. Depending on our draw, we can pursue this line of attack instead. With our Treasure token generation, we have the potential to grow the Construct tokens quite large.

Wait, why not more instants and sorceries?

If you’re like me, reading the big block of text on Spinerock Tyrant immediately gets you thinking about which spells we can double up. Unfortunately, I think this is a siren song. Modern has so much efficient removal that it’s unlikely we’ll get to untap with the big 6/6. Of course, if we do, that’s great, but we can’t build a deck full of spells that are only going to be good with the Dragon out. Especially if we aren’t playing other threats.

So what I’ve done is just build a solid Midrange Rakdos deck with powerful instants and sorceries that don’t need to be copied to be good. If we ever do get to copy them, then we’ll be thrilled, but I don’t think we can rely on doing so to win a game.

Saying this, though, I’m already brewing up a deck in my mind that will try this very thing…

Sideboard

Spinerock Tyrant‘s static ability did impact my sideboard choices. Surgical Extraction instead of Leyline of the Void, for instance. Sheoldred’s Edict over, say, Damnation. Price of Freedom over Blood Moon.

Each of these instants and sorceries bring with it advantages that their alternatives lack, mostly being cheaper to cast.

Tokka & Rahzar, Terrible Twos is an on-curve threat that can punish all the Solitudes and Force of Negations out there.

Match 1 vs. Changeling Tribal

Match 2 vs. Calibrated Blast

Match 3 vs. Infect

Match 4 vs. Eldrazi Tron

Overall Record: 2-2

Conclusion

That’s all the time I had for this bonus article! However, I think the deck is quite competitive. My one big regret here is that I never got to show off the power of Spinerock Tyrant. Which, in and of itself, may be a sign that it’s just not good enough for Modern.

That being said, I played a few matches with a different build of the deck, and Spinerock Tyrant did manage to win us a couple of games and at least one match. Here’s a short clip I made of it in action. I really want to play this deck some more until I see if the above matches were more anomaly than the norm. After all, we played against two aggressive decks, a combo deck, and a big mana deck. The first three are all match-ups where I wouldn’t expect the 5 drop to shine. In the latter, we were hamstrung by mana when we would’ve been able to resolve it for value.

Furthermore, I found myself having to mulligan often. Even with 23 lands, our opening 7s frequently only had 1 land or 2 colorless lands. This is variance, of course, but with a little better luck here, I think this deck will be even more competitive.

Overall, though, I was impressed with the deck! Compared to the last time I played Rakdos Dragons in Modern, this build was amazing! I’m hoping to give Spinerock Tyrant another chance to shine in at least one other deck besides this one, but for now, the above matches will have to do.

Let me know what you think of the new mythic Dragon. How would you go about building around it? Thanks for watching!