The Commander
Flying
When Bladewing enters, you may return target Dragon permanent card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
: Dragon creatures get +1/+1 until end of turn.
Guide
Gameplan
Bladewing the Risen anchors a Rakdos Dragon tribal deck that ramps into fatties, reanimates fallen Dragons on cast, and pumps the team for a flying alpha strike. Early turns are spent ramping and setting up; midgame you deploy Dragons and use Bladewing's ETB to recur your best ones, then close with evasive beats and the anthem.
Strengths
- Built-in reanimation that punishes removal—killing your Dragons just fuels Bladewing
- Repeatable team pump via ability turns wide Dragon boards lethal
- Flying tribe naturally evades most blockers for fast clocks
- Deep, powerful card pool of strong Dragons in Rakdos colors
Weaknesses
- High curve makes the deck vulnerable to mana disruption and slow starts
- Bladewing's seven mana cost and reanimation tied to ETB make him removal-bait before value
- Lacks blue/white interaction, so it's soft to combo and protected boards
- Board wipes can devastate a Dragon-heavy battlefield
Key Cards
- Lathliss, Dragon Queen — Generates a Dragon token whenever another nontoken Dragon enters and can pump the team, snowballing your board.
- Scourge of Valkas — Turns every Dragon entering into direct damage, providing a non-combat win path alongside its own anthem.
- Terror of the Peaks — Deals damage equal to power whenever a creature enters, devastating boards and acting as a finisher with Dragon tokens.
- Dragon Tempest — Gives Dragons haste and burns opponents on entry, accelerating your clock and rewarding token generation.
- Crux of Fate — Flexible board wipe that can spare your Dragons while clearing everyone else's threats.
- Sarkhan, Fireblood — Cheap card advantage and ritual-style ramp that fuels casting expensive Dragons ahead of curve.
Upgrade Path
Add fast mana and ramp (Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Cultivate-style fixing, treasure makers) to deploy Dragons ahead of schedule and reduce the high curve's risk. Lean into reanimation enablers and blink effects (Buried Alive, Animate Dead, Conjurer's Closet) to abuse Bladewing's ETB, and include protection like Heroic Intervention or Boots/Greaves to keep him alive. For higher power, add free interaction and a compact combo finish such as Terror of the Peaks plus a cheap token-doubler or sacrifice/recursion loop.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Alpha strike with a pumped team of flying Dragons via the ability
- ▸Aggregate ETB damage from Scourge of Valkas, Terror of the Peaks, and Dragon Tempest
- ▸Recurring a haymaker Dragon like Utvara Hellkite or Lathliss to snowball an unbeatable board
Archetypes
- Dragon Tribal — Bladewing pumps all Dragons and recurs them, making him a natural Rakdos tribal payoff.
- Reanimator — His ETB returns any Dragon permanent from the graveyard, enabling cheat-into-play and recursion loops with blink/sacrifice.
- Aggro Midrange — Flying beaters plus the repeatable anthem let you race opponents through the air.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (BR), by popularity.
