Draco Blast: Spicy Brew
Draco Blast is a black-red Specter deck that wins with a Draco it never casts. Draco has a mana value of 16, the highest of any Premodern card, and Erratic Explosion turns that number into damage: it reveals cards from the top of your library until it hits a nonland card and deals damage equal to that card's mana value to any target. Insidious Dreams puts Draco where it needs to be. As an additional cost you discard X cards, then you search your library for X cards, shuffle and put them on top in any order. The usual line is Dreams for two at the end of the opponent's turn, with Erratic Explosion on top and Draco right under it. You draw the Explosion in your draw step, cast it for 2R, reveal Draco and deal 16, which ends the game if the opponent is at 16 or less. A Bloodstained Mire cracked in between would shuffle Draco away, so it waits. The revealed cards then go to the bottom of your library, Draco included, and with a single Explosion in the main deck that's the only shot in game one; the sideboard adds two more. Explosion can also be aimed at a creature instead.
The other 54 cards get the opponent to 16 and clear the way. Dark Ritual makes a turn-one Hypnotic Specter possible, and Specter's random discard and Blazing Specter (flying and haste, and the opponent discards a card of their choice whenever it connects) keep the opponent's hand small. Mesmeric Fiend, which exiles a nonland card from their hand until the Fiend leaves the battlefield, and four Duress go after the counterspell that could stop Dreams or the Explosion. Lightning Bolt, three Grim Lavamancer and two Mishra's Factory do the rest of the damage. The cards you discard to Dreams aren't wasted, because Lavamancer exiles two cards from your graveyard each time it deals 2 damage. Phyrexian Arena draws an extra card in each of your upkeeps, and that changes the setup: with one Arena out you draw twice before your main phase, so Dreams puts one more card above Draco for each Arena, or it waits until the Arena trigger has resolved in your own upkeep, and then Dreams and the Explosion have to be paid for in the same turn.
Drawing Draco is the weak spot. This list has no way to put it back on top, so a drawn Draco stays in your hand, and an Explosion without it deals whatever the next nonland card costs, between 1 and 4 in this deck. Later builds fixed that with Scroll Rack, which swaps cards from your hand for the top cards of your library and puts them back on top in any order, and Volrath's Stronghold, which puts a creature card from your graveyard on top of your library for 1B and a tap. Draco is a creature card, so with the Stronghold on the table a Draco discarded to Dreams or to the opponent's discard can go straight back on top. Of the 70 Draco Blast results on TCDecks, 40 play Scroll Rack and 35 the Stronghold.
The sideboard has four Pyroblast for blue decks, four Phyrexian Negator (a 5/5 trampler for three that costs you a permanent for every point of damage it takes), two Firebolt and two Engineered Plague against Elves and Goblins, two more Erratic Explosion and a Persecute. David Daniel won the 102-player Premodern Online Monthly in June 2020 with this 75. TCDecks lists it under the deck name Machine Head, which is what mtgtop8 calls the black-red Specter deck today. It's the oldest Draco Blast list on TCDecks and still the biggest win there, and the deck has changed little since. Mikael Borg finished third of 48 at the Premodern Easter Championship on 30 March 2024 with two Terminate and a Scroll Rack in place of two Blazing Specter and an Arena, plus a slightly different mana base, and Figols was second of 14 at Temple From Below in Alcora, Spain on 3 January 2026 with a close copy that adds two Terminate and a Volrath's Stronghold. A newer branch drops Arena, Lavamancer and Mesmeric Fiend for Ravenous Rats, Cabal Therapy, Terminate, Scroll Rack and the Stronghold: Didgeridood was third of 131 in the CPS Monthly League in April 2025, and David Crosse finished 29th of 279 with the same 60 at the North American Premodern Championship 2025.
Mainboard
- 4× Hypnotic Specter
- 4× Blazing Specter
- 4× Mesmeric Fiend
- 3× Grim Lavamancer
- 1× Draco
- 4× Dark Ritual
- 4× Insidious Dreams
- 4× Lightning Bolt
- 4× Duress
- 1× Erratic Explosion
- 4× Phyrexian Arena
- 6× Swamp
- 4× Bloodstained Mire
- 4× Sulfurous Springs
- 4× Urborg Volcano
- 3× Mountain
- 2× Mishra's Factory
