Always wanted a draw card for your Magic the Gathering Dragon deck that can’t be countered? With the instant-speed spell card Dragonlord’s Prerogative, you have just that! If you have a Dragon in hand as you cast it or have one already in play, you’re in luck. Essentially, this takes an old draw spell called Opportunity and tacks on a niche, but useful benefit. Of course, six mana is a huge investment and essentially eats up your turn. So, if it gets countered, that’s a big waste of resources. Whereas Opportunity saw little play in the past for that reason, this spell helps you refuel with the potential of being completely uncounterable.

In control and tempo builds, you can play Dragonlord’s Prerogative on an opponent’s end step.  This is much like the role Jace’s Ingenuity once played in the past. That card offers drawing three cards for five mana, but with no protection against being countered. So, the potential added protection against counter-magic is useful. But, is it just flavorful icing?

Opportunity is usable in Commander, and it has been pretty good in Limited when it’s in a Core Set. But, it’s hardly ever been a Standard playable card. On the other hand, Jace’s Ingenuity has been due to costing a more palatable five mana. So, how does Dragonlord’s Prerogative stack up? It’s a strictly better version of an older effect and drawing 4 cards at instant speed is awesome. This is a cute draw card with a seemingly very narrow additional effect.

However, in competitive Standard play, Esper Dragons and Blue/Black Control ended up playing Dragonlord’s Prerogative on a regular basis with a fair amount of success. It turns out that 6 mana for 4 cards is always pretty much worth it, especially when it has no chance of being countered. With Dragonlord Ojutai and other Dragons seeing plenty of Standard play during the Standard heyday of Dragons of Tarkir, Dragonlord’s Prerogative was rarely going to be countered. 

While leaving up six mana on an opponent’s turn may seem foolhardy, it also held up the possibility that you were holding counter magic. As soon as an opponent would pass their turn, the Dragon deck player could trade in this one spell for four new cards, an instant plus-three in card advantage.

As for Commander, Talrand, Sky Summoner was one of the first Legendary Creatures to adopt Dragonlord’s Prerogative for his deck, loving the functional reprint of Opportunity, a card which Talrand often played before. It loses its extra upside, thanks to Talrand rarely playing any Dragons in his deck, but that doesn’t really matter for Talrand’s purposes. Naturally, Niv-Mizzet the Firemind Commander players wanted it, too, since their Commander is a Dragon. Many other Dragon Commanders with Blue mana in their color identity such as Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Dragonlord Ojutai, Intet, the Dreamer, and more were happy to integrate the spell. After all, card draw is extremely important in the EDH format. The potential protection against counter magic is just a nice, easy to access bonus.

While Dragonlord’s Prerogative has relatively narrow playability since it needs Dragon cards in your hand to be used to full effect, Dragons are extremely well supported in Magic the Gathering. While there’s an argument that this easily could have been printed at uncommon, and was annoying to players who heavily drafted the set, that doesn’t matter now many years later. The card does exactly what it was designed to do: give Dragon decks a fair, but powerful way to draw cards. It is indeed a Dragonlord’s Prerogative to draw 4 cards, and there’s nothing you can do about it!