In this experiment, we seat our most devoted druid on the Dragon Throne and watch as its devotion enhances the strength of all its Insect, Squirrel, Hound, and Elf subjects.

Khans of Tarkir previews have already started in the form of a few cards that will be appearing in Duel Decks: Speed vs. Cunning. Full previews will start at the PAX party this weekend and will continue starting Monday until the full set is revealed. For now, though, the September FNM poster has already revealed this:

It’s a legendary Equipment that costs and to equip. The equipped creature has defender, but we can pay and tap it to give our other creatures trample and +X/+X, where X is the queen’s power. Oh, and by queen, I mean the creature seated on the throne. Uh, and by seated on the throne, I mean the creature Dragon Throne of Tarkir is equipped to.

This card seems pretty unwieldy but extremely potent in certain situations. As I quite enjoy orchestrating certain situations, that’s what we’ll put our efforts toward today.

The first creature that came to mind was Devoted Druid.

What Devoted Druid has to offer is her ability to untap. Oh, and she makes mana. With multiple copies of Devoted Druid and one on the Throne, we can untap the queen for repeated activations and untap the other Druids for the mana. It requires some power on our Devoted Druid to begin with, so let’s start with the power of Vigean Hydropon (how’s that for royalty?) for an initial boost.

Here’s a sequence to show off some potential:

• Control Vigean Hydropon equipped by Dragon Throne of Tarkir and three copies of Devoted Druid.
• Pay 2 mana (from lands) and activate the Hydropon’s Throne ability. Our Druids are now 5/7s.
• Tap the three Druids for mana and spend it to reequip the Throne to one of the Druids. (We could spend mana from lands instead if we have it.)
• For each Druid, put a -1/-1 counter on it to untap it. They’re now 4/6s.
• Tap all three Druids—two for mana and one for its Throne ability. Our unequipped Druids are now 8/10s, and the equipped one is still a 4/6.
• Untap the two unequipped Druids, make mana with them, untap them again, make mana with them again, untap them one more time, and make mana with one of them. They’re now 5/7s, and we have 5 mana.
• Spend 3 of the mana to move the Throne onto the untapped Druid, and spend the other 2 to activate its Throne ability. Now it’s still a 5/7, but we also have a 10/12 and a 9/11.

As you can see, we can repeat variations on this process as much as we like—as long as we don’t mess it up somewhere along the way. Once we have them about the size we want (rounded to the nearest million), we could even start adding more -1/-1 counters for a bunch of mana. Note, however, that at the end of our turn, the Druids will die, as the Throne’s pump effect will end, but the counters will stay.

Even with something as simple as Giant Growth, we might have enough fuel to get this going given that we have enough Devoted Druids and setup mana. In addition to Giant Growth, our deck will have Vigean Hydropon and Llanowar Reborn’s graft, Hunting Triad’s reinforce, and even Deadbridge Goliath’s scavenge to help make a Druid big enough that we don’t have to activate the Throne with another creature beforehand.

Plan B

Pulling off our combo requires several copies of Devoted Druid in addition to the Dragon Throne of Tarkir. Without redundancy, therefore, we’ll have to relegate this to Plan B, though a kicked Rite of Replication will give us plenty of Devoted Druids to work with.

Plan A

Plan A, then, will just be to maximize the Dragon Throne. What does that require? Well, we clearly need a big ol’ creature to sit on the Throne. Unfortunately, the seated creature can’t attack, but it does substantially pump its minions.

Below are some of our Plan A cards, both big creatures and hordes of minions.

Hunting Triad – This card plays double-duty here, as it can set up a great Throne activation either by making one big creature or by making a bunch of minions to receive the royal boon.

Acorn Harvest – I can’t have a green token-making deck and pass up Squirrels in good conscience. This one has the potential to make four Squirrels on a payment plan.

Fungal Sprouting – Given that we have a big Throne-equipped creature, Fungal Sprouting will give us exponential growth.

Mongrel Pack – With 4 power, the Mongrel serves as a fine king. If it dies, the Pack serves as a fine army.

Spectral Force – As an 8/8 for 5, its power-to-mana efficiency is hard to match. It doesn’t untap if it attacks a player who has no black permanents, but when it’s the king, we won’t have to worry about that drawback.

Weatherseed Treefolk – The tree king helps ensure we always have someone to sit on the Throne.

Ant Queen – A fine queen—even having the royal term in her name—she also works quite nicely as an outlet for the possibility of infinite mana. Oh, and that mana can be spent to generate even more babies.

Aether Mutation – Finally, Aether Mutation is a fine, but expensive, removal spell that also gives us a bunch more minions to work with. And when we have a bunch of creatures at massive sizes but are impeded by a problematic creature such as Windborn Muse or Platinum Angel, Aether Mutation will do the trick.

The Druid Queen ? Casual | Andrew Wilson

• Creatures (16)
• 1 Mongrel Pack
• 1 Spectral Force
• 1 Weatherseed Treefolk
• 2 Ant Queen
• 2 Deadbridge Goliath
• 4 Devoted Druid
• 4 Vigean Hydropon
• 1 Polukranos, World Eater

• Spells (20)
• 4 Giant Growth
• 1 Fungal Sprouting
• 2 Acorn Harvest
• 2 Aether Mutation
• 3 Rite of Replication
• 4 Hunting Triad
• 4 Dragon Throne of Tarkir

• Lands (24)
• 3 Forest
• 7 Island
• 2 Simic Growth Chamber
• 4 Llanowar Reborn
• 4 Simic Guildgate
• 4 Yavimaya Coast

Buy This Deck

If you wanted something to get you started with Dragon Throne of Tarkir, if you needed more uses for Devoted Druid, or if you just needed a reason to pull out that Spectral Force and those Vigean Hydropons, give this deck a try.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com