"Kolaghan , The Storms Fury:Death Dash"

"Kolaghan , The Storms Fury:Death Dash"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

How does one play with a card like Kolaghan? Well Aggressively of course. Just look at all that lightning and that sleekness that connotes speed. The aim is to strike fast and hard. Something that the Mardu of old have come to embody. Ever since this dragon came out of print there are a lot of token players who are aching to  give it a spin.

So the ability says that whenever a dragon you control attacks , creatures you control get +1/0 until end of turn. The card in standard that benefits from this massive boost is Hordeling Outburst , the alternate version of this card even shows a Kolaghan chasing after a bunch of goblins. The alternate card answers the question why the goblins were running in the first place and why they are just bursting out to get away from those massive jaws of death.(or are they being led by Kolaghan? Hmmmm)

So if you already have at least 6 tokens in play when Kolaghan arrives on the battlefield(Via Dash Mechanic of course) , all creatures including the attacking Kolaghan gets +1/0. This translates into 17 points of damage! 12 from the tokens and an additional 5 from Kolaghan itself. Nothing short of a bloodbath would ensue for your opponents. Kolaghan goes back to your hand and evades End Hostilities or Crux of Fate that your opponent would hopelessly cast on his or her turn to at least clear the board of those pesky tokens that you amassed. If they do not have a Hero's downfall or any spot removal at hand then Kolaghan could finish them off with ease.

When it comes to aggression and surprise Kolaghan is the most explosive of the dragon brood coming out of Fate Reforged, In comparison Atarka and Ojutai are way too slow. Silumgar is probably the only Dragon who could hold it off while Dromoka needs to have itself bolstered first in order to stand a chance at surviving the sudden attack. 

Oh and just in case you were wondering what other card works well with this Kolaghan + Token strategy then look no further than the card Dragon Rage which gives you 1 red mana for each of your attacking creatures and a "dragon breathing" ability for each one of them. You pay 1 red mana and pump any of them for +1/0 until end of turn.

So going back. You have 6 tokens attacking as well as Kolaghan. The plan is to go for lethal but your opponent casts 2 Raise the Alarms effectively blocking 4 of your Goblin creatures with 4 1/1 Soldier tokens.Do you go quietly and accept the death of these goblins? Of course not. You cast a Dragonrage for 3 mana at instant speed and add 7 mana for all your attacking creatures. One of those unblocked Goblins or Kolaghan itself then gets a +7/0 boost. Though you may have lost 4 tokens and 8 damage the unblocked creatures would still be able to dish out 16 points of pain. If you have 2 Collateral Damage at hand you could even sacrifice your goblins and deal 6 damage since your goblins are about to die anyway.

Now imagine if there were no blockers or only one creature was blocked. This is what we call GG or Good game. Nothing to do but scoop up your cards and be ready for Kolaghans next Death Dash.