Can Call the Spirit Dragons Be Tweaked to Work in Standard?

Call the Spirit Dragons got exactly the treatment expected of an MTG Timmy card: zero expectations for constructed play, but full of sarcastic remarks of its eventual creation of an obsessive fanbase in Commander.

But seriously, a WUBRG enchantment that needs five different potentially very high mana value creatures to survive a whole turn cycle? Yeah, good luck with that when even in Standard everyone is packing exile/bounce removal, a fuck ton of board wipes, and games are often decided by turn four, if not turn two.

Generally, most players agree on these principles for what makes alternate win conditions work in MTG Standard, even in 2025:

• They need to be achievable within a realistic timeframe
• They need protection or redundancy to survive interaction
• They should provide immediate value, not just future payoffs
• They benefit from offering multiple paths to victory

Call the Spirit Dragons fails on all these counts, which is why it'll stay a Commander-only option.

But, what if a few tweaks could've made this thing occasionally in Standard? That's what I'm diving into today - five theoretical fixes that could've pushed this from "binder fodder" to "interesting FNM option." The idea is to STRICTLY maintain its core identity as a Timmy card, but just push it slightly towards better playability.

Redesign 1: Combat Timing Revelation?

Moving from upkeep to combat is probably the fastest band-aid that we can apply to the card without changing its identity that much. As expected, this tweak prevents your opponent from retaliating at sorcery speed during their turn, but also allows you to win the same turn, even if it is just a possibility and not a definite outcome.

Then again, we did not really change the mechanical requirement for the actual win condition, and so you are still left to be creative in order to get all of those dragons on turn five. And for Dragons available in Standard, that is still a tall order even if we include the ones coming from Tarkir: Dragonstorm. But at the very least, most of the cheapest or easier two-for-one removal for the enchantment itself or for your dragons becomes unavailable, somewhat increasing your odds... I hope?

Redesign 2: Protection Package Buff?

Indestructible sounds great until you realize nobody bothers with destroy effects anymore. Everyone's running exile and even bounce removal nowadays in the hopes of evading more dangerous targets like Heartfire Hero. Adding temporary hexproof shores up that weakness, giving your dragons a fighting chance to survive until your upkeep.

Your opponent only has one shot to use removal, before the ETB resolves. Easy with open mana, of course. But, aim for a good tap out turn, and they're locked out until your upkeep. That kind of decision point makes alt-win conditions interesting instead of just annoying.
Scaling it up to your whole dragon army for a turn cycle doesn't break anything. It just makes an otherwise useless strategy occasionally viable. Though again, much like the first fix, we never really changed anything significant that would make it suddenly broken in other formats (for the sake of making it playable in Standard). Maybe just a teeny bit more tempting for MTG YouTubers to showcase new brews with, I suppose.

Redesign 3: “Tarkir” Mana Reduction

This mana reduction approach directly addresses one of dragon tribal's biggest issues - the color intensity of their costs. It's perfect for Tarkir's three-color dragon cycle, letting you cast something like a 2WUB dragon for just 2, but it only reduces 2RRR to just 2RR. Already provides value even if just for one or two colors, but provides the max value for Tarkir-inspired color combinations.

Other than being a thematic quirk, the Tarkir color requirement also serves as a safety valve. It prevents any scenarios with five-color dragons like Niv-Mizzet, Guildpact becoming completely free (if we chose WUBRG instead, for example), while still giving you a substantial discount on current multi-color Standard dragons like Zurgo and Ojutai. It also creates interesting deck construction decisions, albeit the selections are severely limited in Standard. (There are only five cards that can ever maximize this effect in the format as of this post's publishing.)

Redesign 4: Win More 2.0

Doubling down on the “you win more” theme, but this time with a flexibility twist. Instead of needing five different colored dragons, you could win with three bigger dragons. It's still not trivial to assemble 20 power worth of dragons (since the lowest average power value if you assembled three dragons in Standard with +1/+1 counters is 16 to 18), but in certain situations it may be more feasible than finding one of each color. Plus, three colors again, fulfilling the Tarkir flavor once again.

In Standard, having multiple paths to victory is crucial for fringe strategies. This dual approach means the card stays relevant as the available dragon pool changes with rotation.

Welp, At Least I Tried

Of course, the changes that I have suggested simply worked on the basic framework that you are planning to use this on a legitimate dragon deck. Cards like Leyline of Transformation can potentially push any of my technical fixes into broken territory if taken out of Standard, But still, I believe that the five color requirement for each creature still mitigates that risk, as the consistency would still be slightly lower than ideal for a true meta-breaking deck.

Again, our objective was to simply push Call the Spirit Dragons towards “hmm, interesting” territory rather than making it outright playable. It was designed as a very thematic Timmy card for a reason, and I chose to respect that reason by making the tweaks as simple as mechanically possible.

If anything else, this exercise is a reminder of how small changes can dramatically alter a card's competitive viability without changing its fundamental identity. Because, I only considered MTG Standard for this thought experiment, and I dread to think about what these tweaks would do in more extended formats.