Smaug the Magnificent: the gems EDHRec never shows you

Everyone will tell you to jam every piece of red ramp that makes Treasures into Smaug the Magnificent, call it "synergy," and move on. That's laziness dressed up as strategy. Smaug isn't a Treasure deck. It's a deck that wants a huge number of Treasures concentrated at the exact moment he attacks, so he can unleash a burst of direct damage nobody sees coming. The difference is subtle but decisive: you don't need to generate treasures, you need to stockpile and detonate them. Anyone who confuses the two ends up with a deck that ramps slowly and attacks mediocrely, instead of a flying sniper that closes out games out of nowhere.

With that filter in mind, let's dig into the list of candidates beyond the obvious.

1. Sarkhan, Dragon Ascendant

Everyone looks at him as "just another red dragon," but the real gem is on the back side: if you control a dragon with power 4 or greater, Sarkhan becomes a planeswalker-adjacent threat that protects and pushes Smaug forward. The real multiplier here isn't in the Treasures, it's in resilience: Sarkhan gives you a second threat that forces the opponent to choose who to remove, buying you the turns you need to stockpile treasures without Smaug eating the table's only removal spell. In mid-to-high brackets, where targeted removal is abundant, that kind of redundancy is worth more than another piece of ramp.

2. Dragon-Cursed Halls

A land almost nobody considers because "it doesn't do anything right away." Wrong: it's a manabase piece that turns into an extra threat at almost zero cost once the game goes long, which is exactly the scenario where Smaug thrives — turns 6, 7, 8, with a pile of Treasures ready to explode. The synergy multiplier is indirect but real: it lets you avoid sacrificing deck slots for redundant threats, leaving more room for cards that actually produce or leverage treasures. It shines in long games and control mirrors, where Smaug arrives late but heavy.

3. Glóin, Dwarf Emissary

Most people stop at "makes Treasure when it attacks," treating it as a Smaug duplicate. But the real value is that Glóin generates treasures without needing Smaug himself to go through combat, decoupling the stockpiling from the risk. You can hold Smaug back on defense, let Glóin attack (often dismissed as a minor threat), and reach the dragon's turn with a reserve already built up for a devastating hit. The multiplier is protection: you're no longer putting all your eggs — or rather, treasures — into one risky attack. Excellent in brackets where Smaug gets removed the instant he attacks for the first time.

4. Thorin, Company's Leader

Dismissed by default because "it's not a dragon and doesn't make Treasure." But Thorin is a tribal-adjacent pressure engine that punishes anyone who doesn't block him, making him a perfect parallel threat while Smaug quietly stockpiles treasures during upkeep. The real technical synergy is one of tempo: Thorin gives you a reason to attack early and often, pulling blockers' and removal's attention away from the real target — the dragon loaded with ammunition. Works best at aggressive multiplayer tables, where spread-out threats are worth more than the sum of their parts.

5. The Misty Mountains Cold

A saga almost nobody looks at twice because it seems like "just fixing and a token." The detail that slips by is the incremental value during the turns when Smaug still can't safely attack: it gives you a body, gives you mana, keeps you alive while the treasure count climbs. The multiplier isn't explosive, it's structural: it reduces the variance of dead turns, which for a mono-red deck without a real plan B is the true Achilles' heel. It shines in brackets where games last long enough to make Smaug's slow buildup actually pay off.

What NOT to add (even when instinct screams yes)

Generic red ramp with no Treasure output — ritual-style acceleration, artifacts that just speed up mana. It seems logical to "get Smaug out faster," but the deck doesn't need to reach seven mana sooner — it needs stockpiled treasures, not mana spent immediately. Every slot of pure ramp is one less slot for something that actually fuels the one trigger that matters.

Generic passive card draw (the classic "draw an extra card every turn" with no filtering) — in an aggressive, single-target deck like this one, drawing more without selecting doesn't solve the real problem, which is finding protection for Smaug or ways to protect the attack. It just fills your hand with cards that don't change the equation.

Indiscriminate mass removal — generic board wipes seem "always good in EDH," but here they kill your own plan too: Smaug wants a board where he can attack freely while stacking up Treasure-fueled damage, not a table wiped clean where he then has to start over as the only body left standing — and obviously the first target of every opposing removal spell.

The point is simple: Smaug doesn't reward those who generically stockpile value, he rewards those who know how to wait, protect, and detonate at the right moment. The truly strong cards for him aren't the ones that scream "Treasure" in their text — they're the ones that buy time, decouple risk, or reduce the variance of dead turns. Build him like a patient sniper, not like a ramp deck dressed up as a dragon, and the Lonely Mountain will stop being just a treasure to plunder and become the weapon that breathes fire when you least expect it.