Magic has no shortage of powerful enchantments, but every once in a while, we get a card that feels tailor-made for a specific archetype—Call the Spirit Dragons is one such gem.
At first glance it looks like another tribal anthem. After a few turns on the battlefield, it starts to feel more like a ticking clock. Your Dragons become harder to remove, your board scales passively, and suddenly everyone at the table is counting colors instead of life totals.
Let’s break down why this card is more dangerous than it looks, and how to build around it without turning your deck into a gimmick.
Jump to:
- Why this card actually matters?
- Best commanders
- Dragons for your 99
- Abuse and synergy
- Final thoughts
The Card at a Glance
Call the Spirit Dragons
Mana Cost: {W}{U}{B}{R}{G}
Type: Enchantment
Text:
– Dragons you control have indestructible.
– At the beginning of your upkeep, for each color, put a +1/+1 counter on a Dragon you control of that color.
– If you put +1/+1 counters on five Dragons this way, you win the game.
This card combines board protection, scaling advantage, and a win condition into one. This combination is what makes it scary.
Why This Card Actually Matters?
1. Indestructible Dragons
One of the biggest risks in playing creature trial deck is overcommitting to the board and then getting punished by a well-timed board wipe. With Call the Spirit Dragons, your board significantly harder to answer. Board wipes like Wrath of God, Damnation, or Blasphemous Act become far less threatening. It allows you to commit more creatures to the board without fear of losing tempo. There are still some board wipes we need to pay attention to, we will talk about that later.
Remember! This doesn’t make your board untouchable, exile and bounce still hurt.
That means you’re still vulnerable to Farewell, Merciless Eviction, Cyclonic Rift, etc. However, Call the Spirit Dragons massively cuts down on the number of spells that can ruin your game plan. In average EDH table, most wipes are still destroy-based, so it puts you well ahead of most creature-based strategies.
It’s good if you bring second layer protection with you.
- Teferi’s Protection – Save your board from exile.
- Asceticism & Privileged Position – Save your Dragon from Path to Exile.
2. Upkeep-Based Scaling
Multicolored Dragons get out of control fast. Have a Dragon that’s red, green, and white? That’s extra three +1/+1 counters every turn! Your Dragons grow bigger every turn without spending mana or cards, making your threat level escalate turn by turn. Even if the win condition never triggers, your board naturally snowballs.
3. Alternative Win Condition
It’s expected for most Dragon deck to win through combat damage.
With Call the Spirit Dragons, it dodge common stax pieces that stop combat, or life gain. You also can win without attacking, which is perfect against pillow-fort or fog-heavy decks.
Once players realize you could accidentally win just by surviving a few upkeeps, they start reacting differently, sometimes making inefficient plays just to slow you down.
Best Commanders
Because of its five-color mana cost and ability that rewards color diversity and Dragon synergy, Call the Spirit Dragons naturally fits into WUBRG Dragon decks—and fortunately, EDH already has some legendary powerhouses built just for that.
Let’s break down the top three commanders that not only support this enchantment but actively amplify its power and enable its win condition.
- The Ur-Dragon is the premier commander for Dragon tribal, and for good reason. It offers everything a Dragon deck wants:
- Cost Reduction for all Dragons while in the command zone means you can cast your multicolored creatures earlier.
- Its attack trigger draws cards and lets you cheat creatures into play for free, which is an easy way to build up your five different Dragons to trigger the alternate win.
- Naturally encourages playing a wide range of multicolored Dragons, ensuring you hit as many colors as possible. Key to triggering all five +1/+1 counters each upkeep.
- Deckbuilding Note
The Ur-Dragon’s ability helps flood the board with Dragons, which synergizes beautifully with indestructibility, allowing you to swarm without fear of losing everything to a board wipe.
- Tiamat is an incredible enabler for this enchantment because she effectively tutors the win condition into your hand:
- On cast, she can search up to five Dragons with different names, letting you tutor one for each color and ensure your next few turns are full of value drops that trigger Call the Spirit Dragons.
- Perfect for selecting multicolored Dragons that span all five colors, giving you maximum synergy with the +1/+1 counter mechanic.
- Works both as a commander or a support card, she’s flexible and always impactful.
- Deckbuilding Note
With Tiamat as your commander, you can run a tightly curated toolbox of Dragon answers (e.g., Dragonlord Atarka for removal, Ojutai, Soul of Winter for draw, Silumgar, the Drifting Death for control). Combined with indestructibility, you can set up your board, protect it, and execute the win condition almost uncontested.
- Scion of the Ur-Dragon is one of the most versatile Dragon commanders ever printed, and his ability synergizes with this enchantment in multiple clever ways:
- Scion can tutor any Dragon from your library into your graveyard by becoming a copy of it. This helps you:
- Adjust to threats or gaps in your board.
- Create color diversity on the field (each form has different colors).
- Build graveyard synergy if your deck includes recursion like Karmic Guide or Animate Dead.
- Because Scion can change his form multiple times (with enough mana), he can effectively be your fifth Dragon of the right color to satisfy the win condition at just the right moment.
- Deckbuilding Note
Scion loves running a mix of utility Dragons in the deck (like Niv-Mizzet Reborn, Silumgar, the Drifting Death, and Dragonlord Atarka), which naturally aligns with Call the Spirit Dragons’ requirement for multicolored Dragons. Plus, the graveyard recursion engine means you can recover Dragons lost to exile or bounce effects, keeping you on track to win.
- Scion can tutor any Dragon from your library into your graveyard by becoming a copy of it. This helps you:
Dragons for your 99
You want Dragons that are:
- Multicolored mana cost to trigger multiple counters
- They should do something valuable when played or while on board.
- You want to span all five colors efficiently.
Here are a few prime picks:
- Niv-Mizzet Reborn
- Hits all five colors – Gets 5 counters every upkeep.
- Immediate value with potentially top 10 card draw.
- Can be poster child for your win condition, he grows fast and digs for your best cards. He’s not just support, he’s more a centerpiece.
- Dragonlord Atarka
- 2 counters per upkeep.
- 8/8 trample, help you to remove pesky blockers or utility creature with ETB effect.
- Ojutai, Soul of Winter
- 2 counters per upkeep.
- Solid value Dragon that’s hard to remove and feed your hand with answers.
- Dragonlord Dromoka
- 2 counters per upkeep.
- Lifegain and big body help you stabilize and control tempo.
- Great against control decks, give your turns some breathing room.
- Silumgar, the Drifting Death
- 2 counters per upkeep.
- Sweeps token armies.
- Synergizes beautifully in metas with creature spam or aggro builds.
Abuse and Synergy
While Call the Spirit Dragons is already powerful on its own, we want to dramatically accelerate our path to victory by leaning into support cards that manipulate upkeeps, supercharge counter production, and flood the skies with even more Dragons.
Extra Upkeep / Trigger Tools
Increasing the number of times the upkeep trigger resolves it the most direct way to rush toward the win condition. These cards multiply your triggers, meaning more +1/+1 counters, faster growth, and an earlier game-ending moment.
- Paradox Haze
Enchant yourself to double the number of +1/+1 counter triggers per turn. With two upkeeps, your Dragons can go from modest to massive in record time. A simple enchantment that synergizes beautifully with Call’s upkeep clause. - Strionic Resonator
Use it during your upkeep to copy the enchantment’s ability, placing a second round of counters and accelerating the win condition. It’s cheap, repeatable, and works with other triggers in your deck too. - Sphinx of the Second Sun
Non-Dragon, but grants you an entire second beginning phase, which includes another upkeep. More triggers, more growth, and more win potential, all while being a powerful flying body itself.
Proliferation & Counter Doubling
You might be placing just two or three +1/+1 counters each upkeep, and that might not be fast enough to close the game. These cards help you speed up the win condition and make your Dragons grow out of control faster than your opponents can react.
- Doubling Season
The classic. Every time you place +1/+1 counters, you place double that amount. Even one upkeep can result in your Dragons becoming enormous. If you place counters on 3 Dragons normally, this makes it 6. - Branching Evolution
A leaner, cheaper alternative to Doubling Season focused purely on creatures. Whenever a creature would get one or more +1/+1 counters, it gets that many plus one. A great way to steadily escalate your Dragon stats turn by turn. - Winding Constrictor
Not Dragon, but with 2 mana, it can do quite a massive work. It’s an efficient early play, and holds its own as a value engine throughout the game. Easily one the of best non-Dragon utility creatures you can run. - Thrummingbird
Every time it connects, it proliferates—perfect for those early turns when you’re trying to stack counters on fewer Dragons. It adds redundancy to the proliferation package and keeps the pressure up. - Sword of Truth and Justice
Grants protection from white and blue, and proliferates on combat damage while also putting a +1/+1 counter on a creature. Equip this to a flying Dragon and get repeatable value each turn. - Karn’s Bastion
A land that taps for colorless and can proliferate for 4 mana. Doesn’t take up a spell slot, and gives you a repeatable way to push extra counters toward your win. Great mana sink in the late game.
Dragon Support (Non Creature)
These non-creature cards don’t just passively support your game plan, they supercharge your mana base, draw you into more Dragons, and amplify the destructive power of your scaly army. Each one plays a key role in making your deck faster, smoother, and more threatening, especially when paired with Call the Spirit Dragons.
- Dragon’s Hoard
Staple in any Dragon tribal deck. Mana rock that taps for any color, and passively draws you cards whenever a Dragon enters the battlefield under your control. It fixes your mana early and keeps your hand full late. - Kindred Discovery
One of the most explosive draw engines in tribal EDH. In a Dragon deck packed with haste enablers and token generators, Kindred Discovery turns every combat phase into a windfall of value. - Crucible of Fire
All your Dragons get +3/+3, turning even your smallest token into a legitimate threat. This stacks beautifully with Call the Spirit Dragons’ counters, often pushing your board into one-shot range without relying on the alternate win condition. Perfect for wide board states. - Urza’s Incubator
This is a massive tempo swing that lets you drop multiple Dragons per turn, or allows you to hold up mana for protection or combo pieces. It turns slow hands into explosive starts and auto-include in any tribal deck with higher CMC creatures.
Dragon tribal has a lot of little synergy pieces that quietly push the deck over the top, especially when you’re already running a big engine like Call the Spirit Dragons. Some help you keep cards flowing, some make your counters scale faster, and others just smooth out your ramp so the big threats land earlier.
These are just a few that I personally keep coming back to — they’ve worked well for me, but honestly, that’s the fun part of Dragons. There’s always room to tweak, try spicy tech, and add your own style to the deck.
Final Thoughts
Call the Spirit Dragons really rewards you for building with intention — leaning into multicolored Dragons, planning your upkeeps carefully, and finding ways to stay ahead even when opponents try to reset the board with exile or bounce effects. It’s a great fit for Dragon EDH players who want a flashy, memorable win condition that isn’t just “attack and pass.”
Whether you’re piloting The Ur-Dragon, Tiamat, or Scion of the Ur-Dragon, this card can slot in as steady support or become the kind of dramatic finisher that closes the game in style.
The answer was always there.
– 99Mastermind
