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Ureni of the Unwritten was released inMagic: The Gathering’sTarkir: Dragonstorm set as a part of the Temur Roar Commander preconstructed deck. While the precon is solid, Ureni of the Unwritten works best as its own Temur (green/blue/red) commander. This guide will not be a precon guide, rather, one for a deck exclusively built for Ureni.
Ureni of the Unwritten is a deck that is all about cheating Dragons onto the battlefield. Its effect is very similar to the popular Dragon commander, The Ur-Dragon, though this is a much more budget-friendly commander. If you like Dragons, Ureni of the Unwritten is perfect for you.
Scourge of the Throne
Terror of the Peaks
x4 Forest
x3 Island
x5 Mountain
Waterlogged Grove
Yavimaya Coast
The deckcontains 39 creatures, five sorceries, three instants, 11 artifacts, seven enchantments,and34 lands. The deck is largely Dragon-focused, with nearly every permanent either a Dragon or a Dragon support card.
Key Cards
Ureni Of The Unwritten
Ureni of the Unwritten is one of themain ways you’ll be getting Dragon cards on the battlefield. Since the deck has such a high number of Dragon creatures, the odds of you whiffing with Ureni’s effect is very low. Unless you’re very unlucky, Ureni will always be putting a Dragon onto the battlefield without spending mana on it.
Ureni of the Unwritten only needs to attack for its effect, it does not need to deal combat damage. This means you’ll put the Dragon on the battlefield before the declare blocker step.
Ureni is essentially two Dragons for the price of one, since ittriggers when it enters the battlefield. Every turn it isn’t removed and manages to attack, you’ll be able to bring out more Dragons. Youwant to verify you choose the most expensive or important Dragonout of the ones you see, so that you may save your mana for other spells.
Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm
Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm is acreature you always want on the battlefield. It will doubleup on every Dragon creaturethat enters the battlefield, even removing the legendary typing if it was a legendary creature. This is especially strong with Ureni to not need to even pay mana for these Dragons.
Miirym does not trigger on cast, only on the Dragon entering the battlefield. While this means if the spell gets countered, you won’t get anything, it offers more synergy with Ureni, which cheats around paying mana costs.
Astral Dragon
Astral Dragon is a bit of a costly card, mana-wise, but thanks to Ureni, you can cast it without the steep mana investment. Itwill make two copies of any noncreatures permanent and make them into 3/3 Dragons. This helps give you more of a board presence, all whilemaking token copies of your best permanents(or lands if you really need more).
Thebest card to copy with Astral Dragon is Cursed Mirror. This is an infinite combo that you can win the game with the turn it resolves (assuming Astral Dragon didn’t enter the battlefield from a combat trigger). Here is how the combo works.
Prerequisites: Cursed Mirror on the battlefield. Any way to put Astral Dragon on the battlefield.
Step 1: Put Astral Dragon into play (either by casting it or cheating it out with another permanent)
Step 2: Astral Dragon triggers, choosing Cursed Mirror as the permanent to be copied. This creates two Cursed Mirror copies. Have them enter as Astral Dragon.
Step 3: With the first Cursed Mirror (as Astral Dragon), copy any two noncreature permanents on the battlefield. They will be 3/3 Dragons with flying.
Step 4: With the second Cursed Mirror, copy the original Cursed Mirror twice.
Step 5: Have one of these new Cursed Mirror copies enter as Astral Dragon, have the other copy enter as any other creature.
Step 6: Repeat steps 2-5.
Results: Infinite copies of noncreature permanents, infinite copies of Astral Dragons with haste, infinite enter the battlefield triggers, infinite mana (if you copy lands), infinite number of any creature.
Savage Ventmaw
Savae Ventmaw is a very simple creature, butone that ramps you very quickly to make sure you can cast more Dragons from your hand. While the deck is Temur and Savage doesn’t produce blue mana, most of the Dragons are either red or green, so this missing mana color isn’t too noticeable.
If Aggravated Assault is on the battlefield, you may have infinite combats by paying for Aggravated Assault’s effect with the mana Savage Ventmaw makes. You also get infinite mana this way, though you likely won’t need it at that point.
Even without taking color requirements into effect,a lot of Dragons cost a lot of mana. The mana generated from Savage Ventmaw can go towards paying generic mana costs as well, making it much easier to cast your expensive spells.
How To Play The Deck
A Ureni of the Unwritten Commander deck isall about placing a ton of Dragons onto the battlefield one way or the other. This can be done by simply casting them, or by cheating them out with Ureni of the Unwritten itself or with Monster Manual. Thedeck has a high mana curve, socheating out Dragons will be the primary way to get them on the battlefieldquickly.
Since a lot of spells costs so much to cast, mana dorks like Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, and Elvish Mystic are very important as they help you cast your ramp spells and big Dragons quicker.
Yougenerally want to always be attacking, as since nearly all your creatures have flying, they’re much harder to block. The deckwants to get aggressive as soon as it canso you’re able to deal enough damage before your opponents can draw any board wipes or removal to take care of your Dragons.
Theprimary win condition of the deck is winning through combat. This can take a bit to get to, but you canquickly snowball once you amass an army of Dragons. Victory is made easier with the Astral Dragon and Savage Ventmaw combos, but you may still win without them.Warstorm Surge and Dragon Tempest help to deal burn damageto bring life totals closer to zero too.
Thebiggest weakness of the deck is its mana curve. While you can cheat around mana with Ureni and Monster Manual, they are still costly spells to begin with, as are most of your creatures. As such,your early game will leave you rather defenseless. Once you establish mana dorks and rocks, you can start to stabilize, butyou may be made a target early onas Dragons are known for their ability to snowball once they have enough mana to do so.
