Reconsidering Sarkhan the Mad

wereotter

So ever since the Innistrad block where I used Sarkhan to run black/red madness vampires, he's sat on the bench of my planeswalker collection due largely to his poor mana gains, requiring cascades to be worthwhile, and hard-to-use planeswalker abilities. However, now, not only does Core 2019 have a lot of cards that care about dragons, but it also has several dragons in the set, which has me dusting off this old planeswalker and giving him a second look.

Things that have helped:

At the moment we have more access to gem conversion supports in standard that ever before considering we have mono-colored converter lands and enemy color converters in Dominaria, and ally color converters from Core 2019. Additionally Sarkhan can run Storm the Vault. While it's well known this support is good for any planeswalker that can run it, it helps Sarkhan both from the treasure tokens, and the fact that Sarkhan gets +1 on blue matches (unlike running it in Koth who gets -1 on blue)

There are now more lower cost dragons, since his ability cares about this, getting more them out is now easier than before.

Dragon's Egg is fantastic bait for enemy support removal as it gives him a dragon token.

If you can combine these tools with some decent dragons and get Sarkhan to his 3rd loyalty (which only costs 18) then that basically becomes a "push here to win" button in a dragon deck.

Sarkhan's second ability combines well with Journey to Eternity allowing you to both kill a creature for a dragon, but then have that creature return and you've activated your recursion engine, which also is a gem converter for one of his primary colors.

Final Thoughts, he might not be a first tier walker, but I do think that his third ability does now have some room to be useful in Standard events, more so than it ever has been before.

Stalker

Would definitely like to hear back on how that build works for you with him. 

Laeuftbeidir

I run such a build since ixl was a thing.

Darigaaz, avarious, the black mp dragon, Stv, journey to eternity and some other fun stuff (Unclaimed territory, alpine moon, masterminds acquisition because why not) - he reliably wins at a +95% rate, always fun for AcrIx.

wereotter

Ah. See I don’t have any of the masterpiece dragons or Diragaz so up till this point for me his deck has been lacking. But now I do have Sparktongue Dragon, Bone Dragon, and Verix Bladewing. It’s made the deck workable.

So far my only thought is Lathliss is good, but too expensive for his mana gains. Still think his red and black gains should be buffed by +1 each

Enygma6

Lathliss + Draconic Disciple
Use Sarkhan's 2nd ability on the Disciple to double-reinforce Lathliss.
Add Journey to Eternity, Rise from the Grave, and/or Abnormal Endurance to your deck for extra shenanigans on this combo.

GrizzoMtGPQ

Nah, Sarkan is still junk. Even with all the best cards in the game you’re better off using a different Walker.

DumasAG

I use Dari, Avaricious, Journey, Isareth, and go in early game on his first two abilities before finishing strong with the third. He’s been my most consistent PW in Red AI since HOU rotated (I don’t play Koth because the AI (correctly) takes all the red matches and then I get tilted, and I don’t play nahiri because I only have 1 deck slot and it’s on a Legacy build for easy TG wins).

arNero

I thought from the thread title that this would be a plea to have Sarkhan buffed, which I would have approved wholeheartedly.

BR Sarkhan is rather difficult to use. His mana gain in the current meta is terrible (at least Karn is more flexible and can buff those mana gains), his second ability is almost always detrimental (I mean, please, we have other planeswalkers who summon a total of 8/8 creatures, even if vanilla, without having to sacrifice anything), and his last ability is highly dependant on having good dragons (In the current meta, we prectically only have Verix that can be considered good; haven't read fully on Vaevictis and Palladia though).

If I need a BR planeswalker that is not Bolas, frankly I prefer Angrath; That guy can be molded into a pseudo-Ob Nixilis who can run support destruction, and any Nixilis-like planeswalker is a good idea right now when creature removals run supreme (we lost Doomfall but still have The Eldest Reborn...)

Mburn7

I have always liked using Sarkhan.  In fact, until I got my Bolas up to the mid 50's I was using Sarkhan in events all the time.  True the mana gains are a bit limited, but running a couple gem converters usually helps.

Also, I found the key was to NOT use dragons.  Instead run cheap creatures with death abilities, and sacrifice them with his second ability.  It works with Eldrazi tokens for free mana, worked with Banewhip Punisher as a kill spell with upside...ect.  It also works extremely well with Journey to Eternity, since you are basically getting a 6/6 dragon for free.

Obviously he isn't top-tier, but I always found him much more useful than everyone else says.

wereotter

Enygma6 said:

Lathliss + Draconic Disciple
Use Sarkhan's 2nd ability on the Disciple to double-reinforce Lathliss.
Add Journey to Eternity, Rise from the Grave, and/or Abnormal Endurance to your deck for extra shenanigans on this combo.

I didn't think to use his second ability on Disciple, that's pretty clever. However I did still have the trouble of actaually getting Lathliss into play since she costs so much and his mana gains are rough.

arNero said:

I thought from the thread title that this would be a plea to have Sarkhan buffed, which I would have approved wholeheartedly.

BR Sarkhan is rather difficult to use. His mana gain in the current meta is terrible (at least Karn is more flexible and can buff those mana gains), his second ability is almost always detrimental (I mean, please, we have other planeswalkers who summon a total of 8/8 creatures, even if vanilla, without having to sacrifice anything), and his last ability is highly dependant on having good dragons (In the current meta, we prectically only have Verix that can be considered good; haven't read fully on Vaevictis and Palladia though).

If I need a BR planeswalker that is not Bolas, frankly I prefer Angrath; That guy can be molded into a pseudo-Ob Nixilis who can run support destruction, and any Nixilis-like planeswalker is a good idea right now when creature removals run supreme (we lost Doomfall but still have The Eldest Reborn...)

I do think he could use a buff when you look at his load out compared to other walkers. I think this can be as simple as buffing his mana gains on black and red to +3. Having that would put his gains ahead of many older two color walkers and on par with several of the current ones.

My point from before is that despite this glaring flaws, his dragon synergy seems more relevant now than before given the dragon synergy that also exists in the cards of Core 2019. I didn't imply that he's now a top-tier planeswalker, but someone who now has a deck you can build around his suite of abilities. Yes Angrath or Bolas could run his deck, but they won't be able to pull the tricks with it Sarkhan can because they lack that synergy.

Kinesia

I have the Red MP dragon and Verix and had been flying over Dowsing Dagger and destroying the Red MP dragon to clear the ground when necessary.

Don't have all the new tricks for him yet and he's only level 36 but he's on my list of folk to level now because it's fun!

FindingHeart8

I applaud the initiative to take an old planeswalker and try to find creative ways to make it useful.

When I got the red and black Kamigawa dragons, I revisited Sarkhan to see if he could make it work, and then again when I got Bladewing and one of the m19 dragons.  Overall conclusion though still is that anything Sarkhan can do, Bolas can do better.

I really think they should revisit the old planeswalkers (especialy Origins) and give them at least a small boost.  Even just a +1 to the mana gains to their colors would make them viable for competition again.

DumasAG

FindingHeart8 said:

I applaud the initiative to take an old planeswalker and try to find creative ways to make it useful.

When I got the red and black Kamigawa dragons, I revisited Sarkhan to see if he could make it work, and then again when I got Bladewing and one of the m19 dragons.  Overall conclusion though still is that anything Sarkhan can do, Bolas can do better.

I really think they should revisit the old planeswalkers (especialy Origins) and give them at least a small boost.  Even just a +1 to the mana gains to their colors would make them viable for competition again.

They've already said they're going to work on the PWs to bring the lower-power ones more in-line. Dominaria was supposed to be the priority, then I guess Core. In theory Bugs should now be the priority, but after that, I guess they'll get to it? Although by then Ravnica will probably be the priority.

FindingHeart8

DumasAG said:

FindingHeart8 said:

I applaud the initiative to take an old planeswalker and try to find creative ways to make it useful.

When I got the red and black Kamigawa dragons, I revisited Sarkhan to see if he could make it work, and then again when I got Bladewing and one of the m19 dragons.  Overall conclusion though still is that anything Sarkhan can do, Bolas can do better.

I really think they should revisit the old planeswalkers (especialy Origins) and give them at least a small boost.  Even just a +1 to the mana gains to their colors would make them viable for competition again.

They've already said they're going to work on the PWs to bring the lower-power ones more in-line. Dominaria was supposed to be the priority, then I guess Core. In theory Bugs should now be the priority, but after that, I guess they'll get to it? Although by then Ravnica will probably be the priority.

Didn't they say that also right after Ixalan but never got around to it?  I dunno, there's always going to be a new set around the corner so I'm not sure when they'll have time to get to it.

Of course they could have said it more recently and I missed it.  There's a lot to read in these forums and coffee can only get me so far

DumasAG

FindingHeart8 said:

DumasAG said:

FindingHeart8 said:

I applaud the initiative to take an old planeswalker and try to find creative ways to make it useful.

When I got the red and black Kamigawa dragons, I revisited Sarkhan to see if he could make it work, and then again when I got Bladewing and one of the m19 dragons.  Overall conclusion though still is that anything Sarkhan can do, Bolas can do better.

I really think they should revisit the old planeswalkers (especialy Origins) and give them at least a small boost.  Even just a +1 to the mana gains to their colors would make them viable for competition again.

They've already said they're going to work on the PWs to bring the lower-power ones more in-line. Dominaria was supposed to be the priority, then I guess Core. In theory Bugs should now be the priority, but after that, I guess they'll get to it? Although by then Ravnica will probably be the priority.

Didn't they say that also right after Ixalan but never got around to it?  I dunno, there's always going to be a new set around the corner so I'm not sure when they'll have time to get to it.

Of course they could have said it more recently and I missed it.  There's a lot to read in these forums and coffee can only get me so far

They probably did :P Who knows, maybe they'll dedicate a task-force of developers for it now that Core is out? How big is the dev team, anyway?

FindingHeart8

DumasAG said:

FindingHeart8 said:

DumasAG said:

FindingHeart8 said:

I applaud the initiative to take an old planeswalker and try to find creative ways to make it useful.

When I got the red and black Kamigawa dragons, I revisited Sarkhan to see if he could make it work, and then again when I got Bladewing and one of the m19 dragons.  Overall conclusion though still is that anything Sarkhan can do, Bolas can do better.

I really think they should revisit the old planeswalkers (especialy Origins) and give them at least a small boost.  Even just a +1 to the mana gains to their colors would make them viable for competition again.

They've already said they're going to work on the PWs to bring the lower-power ones more in-line. Dominaria was supposed to be the priority, then I guess Core. In theory Bugs should now be the priority, but after that, I guess they'll get to it? Although by then Ravnica will probably be the priority.

Didn't they say that also right after Ixalan but never got around to it?  I dunno, there's always going to be a new set around the corner so I'm not sure when they'll have time to get to it.

Of course they could have said it more recently and I missed it.  There's a lot to read in these forums and coffee can only get me so far

They probably did :P Who knows, maybe they'll dedicate a task-force of developers for it now that Core is out? How big is the dev team, anyway?

In times of game updates, I sometimes wonder: