Cavern-Hoard Dragon
Creature — Dragon
This spell costs 
less to cast, where X is the greatest number of artifacts an opponent controls.
Flying, trample, haste
Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, you create a Treasure token for each artifact that player controls.
- CMC
- 9
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Tales of Middle-earth Commander
- Price
- $13.30
- EDHREC rank
- #1444
Cavern-Hoard Dragon hits the table and immediately threatens to snowball — each combat deals damage equal to the number of Treasures you control, then pays you back in kind, turning a hoard into a hoard. The seven-mana ask is real, but pair it with Aggravated Assault and a wide Treasure base and you have an engine that refunds its own extra combats; Sauron, Lord of the Rings decks in particular run it in over 60% of lists for exactly that reason.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Sauron, Lord of the Rings
Sauron, Lord of the Rings generates Armies and incidental Treasures while pressuring every opponent, and Cavern-Hoard Dragon turns that Treasure surplus into direct damage that scales with the board state Sauron naturally builds.
Vazi, Keen Negotiator
Vazi, Keen Negotiator hands out Treasures to opponents as a political tool, and Cavern-Hoard Dragon punishes anyone sitting on a large pile — your generosity becomes a clock the moment the Dragon connects.
Knuckles the Echidna
Knuckles the Echidna rewards connecting with combat damage, and Cavern-Hoard Dragon fits that gameplan while adding a self-fueling Treasure engine that keeps the pressure mounting each swing.
Jolene, the Plunder Queen
Jolene, the Plunder Queen is one of the most dedicated Treasure commanders in the format, and Cavern-Hoard Dragon is the natural finisher — the more Treasures Jolene accumulates, the more damage Cavern-Hoard Dragon deals and the more it replenishes the hoard.
Tannuk, Steadfast Second
Tannuk, Steadfast Second cares about artifacts and value accumulation, and Cavern-Hoard Dragon slots in as a top-end threat that rewards the artifact-dense board state Tannuk naturally constructs.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is the only format where Cavern-Hoard Dragon is genuinely at home — three opponents means three potential damage triggers per swing, and the Treasure-generating metas that have developed around Treasure commanders make its scaling damage relevant far earlier than seven mana suggests. It's legal in Legacy and Vintage on paper, but neither format has the time or the Treasure infrastructure to support a seven-mana Dragon without an immediate game-winning payoff, so it sees zero competitive play there. Oathbreaker is a reasonable secondary home if your planeswalker generates Treasures or runs an aggressive artifact theme, but the 60-card singleton format compresses games enough that the payoff window is narrow.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Cavern-Hoard DragonAggravated Assault
Target opponent loses the game; Infinite combat damage to one opponent
View on Commander Spellbook ↗
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Goldspan Dragon comes in around the same price range and also generates Treasures on attacks and blocks, though it lacks the direct damage scaling that makes Cavern-Hoard Dragon a finisher rather than just a value piece. If you want pure Treasure generation on a flying body at a lower cost, Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge and Hoarding Ogre exist as deep-budget proxies, but neither threatens to close a game the way Cavern-Hoard Dragon does — you're trading closing power for price.
Price Context
Current price
$13.30 mid tier
At $13.30, Cavern-Hoard Dragon sits in the mid tier — expensive enough to feel like a deliberate inclusion, cheap enough that Treasure-matters decks have little reason to skip it. It's a mythic with a specific but popular home in multiple commanders, which keeps demand stable, though it's not so ubiquitous that the price is likely to climb significantly.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.