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Ao, the Dawn Sky
Legendary Creature — Dragon Spirit
Flying, vigilance When Ao dies, choose one — • Look at the top seven cards of your library. Put any number of nonland permanent cards with total mana value 4 or less from among them onto the battlefield. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. • Put two +1/+1 counters on each permanent you control that's a creature or Vehicle.
5 / 4
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“Flying Dragon that tutors permanents when it dies—repeat offender.”
Midrange
Intermediate
Combat damage, Tokens swarm
Tokens, Sacrifice, Ramp
Strategy
Ao, the Dawn Sky is a resilient value engine that rewards you for playing into combat. With flying and vigilance, Ao attacks freely without leaving you defenseless, and when it inevitably dies, you get to tutor permanents straight onto the battlefield—basically a second turn-two play baked into your commander. The deck leans into sacrifice outlets and repeatable death triggers to maximize Ao's ETB effect multiple times per game, turning each death into a fresh inflation of resources.
Your core gameplan is to build a creature-heavy midrange deck with mana ramps and cheap permanents (Treasures, tokens, utility creatures) that Ao can repeatedly pull from your deck. The second mode creates an alternate path: if you're going wide with tokens or small creatures, you can pivot to +1/+1 counter strategies to pump your board into a lethal swarm. Most games, Ao does both—it tutors engine pieces and threats while your growing board closes out the game through combat damage.
Strategy generated by Tapped Decks AI. Not affiliated with Wizards of the Coast.
Key Synergies
Budget Build
Skip expensive tutors like Enlightened Tutor; lean on cheap token makers (Bitterblossom, Intangible Virtue, Doomed Traveler) and basic sacrifice outlets like Viscera Seer or Cartel Aristocrat.
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Brought Back
Inclusion = % of Ao, the Dawn Sky decks running this card. +lift = percentage-point boost over the format average.
Community Decks
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Art Variants
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