Scourge, Rare. Form of the Dragon is an example of flavor being represented perfectly from a mechanical standpoint. Let’s walk through this step by step.
1) At each one of your upkeeps, you get to blast something for 5. Awesome, you get some free damage every turn! Enough to kill most threats or to chunk down your opponents. You’ve turned yourself into a FREAKING DRAGON and you’re breathing fire at things. I count that as a mechanical/flavor success.
2) At the beginning of each end step your life total becomes 5. “But Jake,” you say “I don’t want to go down to 5 life! They can kill me pretty easily from there”. Oh, my sweet summer child, that is yet another thing that we can work with to bring DOOM TO OUR ENEMIES, but I’ll address that later. You also need to remember that if you get pegged for less than 5, you’re life total is going to return to 5 at the end of each turn. No. Matter. What. Bring on the Platinum Angel! Or better yet, Platinum Emperion! (Protip: If you play the Emperion, make sure it’s out before Form of the Dragon for maximum life retention)
3) Since we are now a FIREBREATHING HELLKITE OF DOOM, our favorite enchantment makes it so those peons without flying can’t even attack you. A one-sided Moat effect from a red card, and yet it fits perfectly from a conceptual standpoint.
So to sum up, by paying 4RRR, we have turned ourselves into a 5/5 flying dragon. I mean, being a dragon has been a life’s ambition of mine, so just playing this card is a win to me. But if you really want to maximize the card for your own personal game, here are a few suggestions:
-Play ways of gaining extra turns. Doing this gives you multiple upkeep triggers to blast players, creatures, or planeswalkers while minimizing their ability to retaliate since it won’t be their turn for a while. I’d like to propose Second Chance in particular for this, since the 5 life trigger has some symmetry
-Play Paradox Haze. In fact, run a whole playset of them. The idea of burning something/someone for 10 each turn (assuming you only have 1 out) is fantastic. Immolating something/someone for 25 each turn (if you have 4) is like going to magical Christmas land!
-Play Form of the Dragon in conjunction with cards that “donate” permanents to other players such as Zedruu the Greathearted or Puca’s Mischief. What’s that? Your opponent has 70+ life? Would they like to become a dragon? (who doesn’t?) No? (LIAR!) Well, make them anyway!
