Cascade and discover are keywords that conjure images of crashing Footfalls or Geological Appraiser dominating tournaments on the backs of combos able to power out threats far ahead of any reasonable curve or go infinite. Free-casting effects like this have been staples of various formats over the years, and can often be seen on banned and restricted lists with examples like Tibalt's Trickery sitting in the prestigious company of Channel and Demonic Tutor as one of only three cards too strong to be unrestricted in Timeless.
While Tarkir: Dragonstorm isn't giving us a new card with the keyword cascade or discover on it, we're getting an uncommon that behaves similarly in Breaching Dragonstorm. The titular Dragonstorms are uncommon enchantments that give an effect upon entering and then bounce themselves when a dragon enters under your control. Breaching Dragonstorm is the red installment and its text is almost “When Breaching Dragonstorm enters, Discover 8.”
Is This Good?
Breaching Dragonstorm will not likely be a huge money card or break the Standard metagame unless a future interaction proves too powerful. This type of effect often creates these kinds of problems, but cascade is usually only problematic when you can control exactly what you spin into. The cards Violent Outburst and Shardless Agent, for example, are strong because of their ability to cast Crashing Footfalls literally every single time the cascade triggers. This wouldn't be possible if their mana value was higher and their possible hits so easy to restrict.
Breaching Dragonstorm is able to cast up to eight-drops, but its templating is such that it doesn't skip past cards that are too large to cast, but only the lands. This means even if you have a ten-drop in the deck, you simply draw it instead of free casting anything. This templating means it's nearly impossible to abuse, and definitely not abusable in the traditional sense, so we'll need to take a different approach.
What’s the Plan?
The other way to abuse this kind of luck free spin is by having a ton of very expensive cards in the deck so we’re not mad no matter what we spin into. Of course, this results in our mana curve being very heavy which we’ll need to mitigate in some way.
Given that we're trying to resolve a five drop, having some early ramp is going to be critical for us, and I'd say Overlord of the Hauntwoods is a perfect fit. This start has been popular since the moment Overlord of the Hauntwoods dropped because of how easily it sets up late-game strategies like Domain. We know how powerful it is, so let's take advantage. This will make sure we're drawing cards and getting up to five mana ahead of schedule to fire off the dragonstorm.
Playing a lottery ticket like Breaching Dragonstorm only works if our deck has a winning hit in it. For us, that's going to be Dracogenesis. This eight-drop is Omniscience for dragon spells and the keen-eyed among you might have noticed our deck is absolutely littered with them. The omen cards all being dragons gives our deck some amount of interaction without sacrificing slots for the dragons themselves.
If we hit a Dracogenesis, we can follow it up with a Terror of the Peaks and any number of other dragons we have. Nearly all of these dragons trigger Up the Beanstalk, restocking our hand with other dragons we can blast to the field for damage. If we end with a Stormscale Scion, the amount of damage coming off of our Terror of the Peaks should easily be enough to close the game out.
How Will We Survive Long Enough?
This deck's magical Christmas land is pretty great, but how likely will we be to actually make it into the late game? Fortunately, there are a number of omen dragons that can help with that. Runescale Stormbrood is going to be stronger on the play, but its ability to pick off a Monstrous Rage or even a late-game Up the Beanstalk is intriguing. Meanwhile, Disruptive Stormbrood and Twinmaw Stormbrood provide some cheap removal, albeit less impressive than cards that are dedicated removal like Get Lost or Go for the Throat.
Disruptive Stormbrood's enter trigger can also be helpful if our deck is running low and we're comboing off. While these omens recycling themselves makes us resilient to mill, having an option to blow up Up the Beanstalk as we're comboing off could prove very important.
You’ve probably noticed that we're juggling five colors with a ton of omen cards. Since Omens are brand new, I’ll probably adjust this philosophy as I get reps in with this deck, but I fear our land proportions will drop dramatically as the game progresses and we keep reshuffling creatures back into the deck. As a result, having a one-mana spell that can fetch up any basic land while synergizing with our final plan might prove valuable in making sure we’re hitting our land drops consistently.
Other Noteworthy Bombs
In a set absolutely brimming with interesting dragons, I think Marang River Regent might be the strongest. It's a powerful card draw spell that can fill the slot of something like Memory Deluge, which was great in control and ramp decks, while bouncing two permanents upon entering the field. The tempo swing this provides when it comes down even if it's just itself could be amazing, but this can also bounce our dragons to reset them as we're comboing off.
Ureni, the Song Unending is probably the strongest individual spirit dragon in the set as its protections make it very difficult to remove and its stat line can easily close a game by itself. If our Breaching Dragonstorm is unsuccessful in finding a Dracogenesis, but does find this, we're going to be happy more often than not. We have a second copy in the sideboard to help against the control matchup, especially if we find any unlucky Orzhov stalwarts.
Conclusion
This is the part of the deck tech where I level with you and say the previous deck is either a fun jank build or a serious contender. As of this writing, however, this deck is purely theoretical. I’ll be getting a chance to test it live on Twitch as part of the streamer early access event on April 2nd over at twitch.tv/HamHocks42 if you'd like to be among the first to see it in action. I'm excited to give this a spin and whether or not this 75 is the best version, I do suspect these pieces will find homes in the current Standard.
Thank you for reading, and happy brewing!
