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Any thoughts, suggestions? Really hard to make a useful deck with Utvara Hellkite. Probably best to just regard him as any other generic bomb, and put him in a gruul ramp deck? I mean, maybe you don't really need any other dragons than the Hellkite himself? In addition to the mandatory Stormbreath Dragon, of course.
I feel this is basically the ticket. Hellkite it just too expensive and we don't have enough cheap dragons to make trying to build around it worth it. Looking at it like any other bomb to ramp/stall into is likely the best plan. If it manages to get to attack it probably wins the game right there I would think, it folds hard to removal, but seems like a solid finisher for any deck that can get up to the mana to be able to cast it.
I will say that I do like the idea of Hellkite+Ogre Battledriver. It probably won't come up often, but it IS a way to get immediate value off of Hellkite, and Battledriver is a worthwhile card to run on its own so it isn't like you are devoting spots to cards that serve no real purpose other than trying to make Hellkite a thing.
dh50 has said he has had some success with
Shivan Dragon in the mono-red Dragon deck he posted. The more and more I think about it, the less and less I dislike the idea of running
Shivan Dragon. It isn't a card that I would usually be thrilled to run, but the more and more I think about it, the more and more I see how it could potentially be alright in this particular meta (not a lot of flying/reach and a lot of stuff that does have them have relatively low P/T).
Thinking about it, I may try and muck around with a Gruul ramp deck that goes the Dragon route. Stormbreath is solid enough on its own, and the Firebreathing on Shivan could actually put in some work in a deck with the capability to ramp up quickly. Ramp seems like the most reliable method of getting the mana to be able to cast Hellkite and/or Siege Dragon as well.
Would also open up some decent removal options to keep you alive till the dragons start to drop.
Ground Assault by itself could be pretty useful.