I effectively came up with this build after starting off with the green precon they give you on MTGA and seeing that there are a lot of good ramp and tribal dinosaur synergies in standard. Sure, there are lots of other dinosaur synergies to be had in red and white, but I think paying 5G for 4x
Gigantosaurus
is just enough devotion to lock us into playing mono-green (for once), and there's still plenty to do even with green alone.
The game plan here is pretty simple--ramp into a bunch of undercosted threats and turns them sideways until our opponent is el-deado. Good matchups include red aggro, white aggro, azorius aggro, blue tempo, phoenix, and drakes, because we usually just out-class all of their creatures. Gates and Token decks are sort of 50/50 depending on whether we curve out. Bad matchups include Sultai, Esper, 'Rakdos', and pretty much anything playing Teferi and a critical mass of removal spells (which is a lot of the meta, so look out).
The deck sort of builds itself, frankly: 4x
Gigantosaurus
, 4x
Ripjaw Raptor
, 4x
Carnage Tyrant
, 4x
Territorial Allosaurus
, 2x
Ghalta, Primal Hunger
, 4x
Ranging Raptors
, 4x
Drover of the Mighty
, 4x
Llanowar Elves
, 4x
Thunderherd Migration
, and 2x
Vivien Reid
for good measure. I also like to have 2x
End-Raze Forerunners
just because most of our dudes don't have trample at base and it's nice to have that edge against all the token and weenie decks who would otherwise chump-block us for aeons until they found enough removal.
I've also considered shaving a card or two for a few
Wayward Swordtooth
s, but we already have 12 ramp spells, and it's often the case that he actually can't ramp us because we're already out of lands in hand (we're only running 22, after all). He's decent with Ghalta, but so is our entire deck, and he's yet another creature with no evasion, so, I've had to give him the pass, unfortunately.
Easily the biggest weakness of this deck is the over-availability of one-sided board-wipes in the format--
Gates Ablaze
,
Deafening Clarion
,
Settle the Wreckage
,
Ritual of Soot
, even
Goblin Chainwhirler
, at times. There's also plenty of cheap removal, but at least we can blow up Sealed Away,
Hieromancer's Cage
, and
Conclave Tribunal
with Vivien, and
Deputy of Detention
with our Allosauruses.
I've only ever played this deck in Bo1, but if you wanted to build a sideboard for the deck, some cards I'd recommend might be
Gaea's Blessing
(against Dimir discard spells and
Persistent Petitioners
decks),
Hunt the Weak
,
Atzocan Archer
(for the numerous annoying flying creatures in the format at the moment, especially
Pteramander
),
Runic Armasaur
,
Shapers' Sanctuary
, and maybe more Vivien Reids against Teferi decks in particular.
