+1 for the dedication to flavor! :)

Thank you TheFlameReaper :D I am trying! I am just trying to make my dino deck playable enough for it to be my main casual deck. It is my favorite :) I am just eagerly awaiting the set that visits Muraganda!

For simplicity reasons I will recommend picking one set that your cards are in and increasing the quantity of them. You don't need to specify different sets for the same card, that goes for the foil too. Oh, I also don't recommend 4 Evolving Winds in a 2 color deck. I do like all the lizards tho. Nice going! Your Gnathosaur is only good if you can sac a artifact but you only have the 2 eggs. There are better 6 drops out that there don'r require sacrificing a permanent. Try Soul of the Harvest

hmmm I'll look into that DarkD17 thank you :) any suggestions instead of the Evolving Wilds? Or just basic lands?

I would say basic lands over dual colored lands just so you don't have to worry about them coming in tapped on turn 5 when you need to get something out!

I also am not sure why you have Aggressive Mining in here. A Fog or Naturalize would be a better option while waiting to get your manna for your high drops. Just another suggestion!

DarkD17 Aggressive Mining is there only because a friend I play has a really strong mana deck.. so if I could play this on them, it would really help me survive longer. So I guess that should go in the sideboard?? And I like Naturalize, I must look for one with a less mechanical artwork, and Fog makes me happy with how quick it could be used!

Perhaps Smoldering Crater and/or Comet Storm could be fun, if only for flavor reasons? Also, I don't believe you can target anyone but yourself with enchantments like Aggressive Mining.

Also, I've got to ask: how in the world does someone new to the game end up with an expensive card like Gaea's Cradle?

(Tappedout.net search for / Lizard creature types.)

Ditto what DarkD17 said about consolidating your card listings. (For example, just list both your Rugged Highlands as FRF.)

thankyouthankyouthankyou I love your guys' suggestions! I will be writing all these down! I also think I consolidated my list right?

brewtzar Comet Storm looks like it could be fun indeed! And when I looked up the rulings for Aggressive Mining on it seemed like it could be used on others? Or I'm just pulling straws where there are none.. haha (and my Dad saw me organizing and alphabetizing my cards over the course of a few days, went to a game store and asked what would be a good card to have. Gaea's Cradle was my birthday present. I have yet to learn how to properly use it, but wanted to put it in my favorite deck) :D

TyroMaven Thank you! I will be going over what you suggested much more in depth when it is not 3am.. oops. But Ridgetop Raptor and Toxic Iguanar seem like great additions! I don't quite have a true sideboard yet, just a maybeboard that all my "maybes" are going into! Still trying to tweak the main deck!Phyrexian Soulgorger confuses me a bit. (He looks so awesome though!!) When I looked his rulings up on it made it seem that he created a flawed loophole for his second turn? "You may also sacrifice it as part of its own upkeep payment." So would that mean you could play him for two rounds without needing to sacrifice another creature? Because if you sacrificed him, to prevent the sacrifice, then the upkeep would be paid for turn two and Soulgorger wouldn't need to be sacrificed?? (a stretch, I know..) And... yeah... Ugin doesn't belong... but I got lucky with a Fate Reforged Booster! And he is the closest Planeswalker to a dinosaur XD I will rehome him.

I will change the online deck when I make time to reorganize and look for cards to add to my actual deck!

Oops.. the hyperlinks didn't work? I looked up the rulings for Aggressive Mining and Phyrexian Soulgorger on The Gatherer. http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=121160 http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=383179

Wherever you play an enchantment, you still control it and thus the 'you' in an enchantment you control will always refer to you. This is why curses such as Curse of Exhaustion refers to enchanted player rather than you, as that would be quite a terrible card if it did. Enchantments like Aggressive Mining don't target any player or creature (or anything else for that matter). Therefor, as long as your opponent doesn't steal it somehow, the you will always refer to you.

What that first clause on Aggressive Mining's rulings is saying is that you are allowed to use its ability (sacing lands for profit) on your opponent's turn, if you wish. The second clause is saying that while Aggressive Mining specifically says that "you can't play lands", you can still 'cheat' them onto the battlefield by playing cards such as Rampant Growth.

Phyrexian Soulgorger uses an mechanic called cumulative upkeep, which Wizards of the Coast (the boy-os who make this game we know and love) stopped adding to new cards because it was too complicated. Basically at the beginning of each of your turns, you add a age counter to it, and then pay its upkeep cost once for each age counter you have on it. As such, you won't have to pay anything the turn you play it, then the next turn you will have to sacrifice something, then the next turn you will have to sacrifice two things, etc.. You can choose not to pay this upkeep if you like, at the cost of sacing whatever needs its upkeep payed.

What the ruling on Gatherer is saying is that when you pay the cumulative upkeep for this creature at the beginning of your turn, you eitherA) sacrifice creatures as normal to pay the upkeepB) sacrifice Phyrexian Soulgorger because you didn't pay the upkeepC) sacrifice Phyrexian Soulgorger as part of its own upkeep, along with whatever else you need to. I'm not sure why you would ever do this, but whatever.

I hope that helps to clear up some of your questions!

And dang, that's a sweet birthday present. This is a fairly good deck to use it in. It would probably see its most potential in some sort of token swarm deck, I think. Happy birthday, if that was recent!

brewtzar Thanks bunches!!!! A lot of the fine print confuses me with some of the rulings haha don't even get me started on the First Strike and Deathtouch combo! I know that deathtouch resolves after combat, so therefore making the first strike combo, irrelevant. But Xathrid Slyblade and it's explanation, make it sound like it would deal the deathtouch damage before regular combat?

About that...

The deathtouch/first strike combo indeed does work. This would be easiest to explain through explaining how double strike, first strike's younger brother, works.Once you get down to the nitty-gritty of the rules in Magic combat, you'll notice that the whole of combat is separated neatly into several 'steps'. The first one, the beginning of combat step, exists souly so people can cast instants in reaction to combat starting and so that beginning of combat affects like Boros Battleshaper.

Next up is the declare attackers step where, you guessed it, you declare which of your creatures are attacking and against whom (this will always be against your opponent in a 1v1 game). Note that all of your attackers are technically declared at the same time and do not use the stack.

Next is the declare blockers step, where the defending player decides which creatures will block the oncoming attackers. Much like the declare attackers step, this all happens at once and ignores the stack.

Next up (and most relevant to your question) is the combat damage step. Here, creatures clash and damage is dealt all at the same time - with the exception of creatures with first strike and double strike. If such creatures are involved in a combat, the the combat damage step is divided into two halves: An initial one where first strike creatures deal damage, and a secondary one where normal creatures deal damage. Creatures with double strike deal damage during both of these halves.

Finally, there is the end of combat step, where effects that happen at the end of combat do their thing (e.g. Serene Master).

So, to answer your question, your creature with first strike and deathtouch will deal its damage during its special combat damage step. As any amount of deathtouch damage is enough to kill another creature, the defending creature will die before it is able to hit yours.

Now that I'm previewing this post, I notice that it's a really, really drawn out answer. Sorry about that! I just wanted to be as thorough as possible and make sure that you understand the why as well as the what.

Oh, sorry, I just realized that I missed a good chunk of what you were asking. Herp derp. Deathtouch resolves whenever damage is dealt at all, meaning that yes, something getting hit with deathtouch damage in the first strike combat damage step will die before it is able to do damage back. For related fun, try out the Goblin Sharpshooter + Basilisk Collar combo and watch as your opponent flips the table.

brewtzar THANK YOU thank you :D you gave my friends and I food for thought! apparently we have been playing the deathtouch, first strike combo wrong... makes so much more sense now :)

jtlmtg Glad I can help Send a message my way if you need any more advice/rules interpretation.

you say you're a newbie yet you have a Gaea's Cradle, How?????

lewiswtsn - he answers that Gaea's Cradle question in Comment #11 above. :P

Imperiosaur is a good dinosaur, but it can only be cast by basic lands. Thats the only dinosaur i can think of! Great deck idea :D +1

oh i didnt notice you got it haha, my bad!

TyroMaven brewtzar DarkD17THANK YOU GUYS for all your help :) I went through and tweaked my deck quite a bit more, then played it against some friends. Its actually not being walked all over now! Definitely not a deck you would want to play if you are trying to win, but for the sake of playing and just having fun, it is great :D

Any more thoughts?

Hello jtlmtg, glad to see you're still dedicated and working on improving! I've looked through your improved deck and noticed a few things:

You might consider trying to add a little more reliability to your list of instants and sorceries. Many of them are only one- or two-of, which means that the chances of you drawing them when they'll actually matter most is fairly slim.

Still love the theme! Here's a list of lizard cards on Gatherer. Perhaps some more inspiration could lay there?

Explosive Vegetation is great, but it does come out a little late. Perhaps Rampant Growth and/or Cultivate could be good options?

Additionally, while Gnathosaur fits well thematically, it's in all honestly not that good a card for your deck. At 5/4 for 6 mana it's behind the curve, and with only two artifacts you probably won't be using its ability very often. The same can be said with Pygmy Allosaurus. Unless you're running into a lot of people playing swamps, chances are it's just a 2/2 for 3. I'm sure it's hard to find cards that fit thematically for this deck, but if you get the chance cutting those two would probably help somewhat.

You might consider moving Terra Stomper to your mainboard if that works for you thematically. It's a pretty great beatstick for its cost and uncounterable to boot.

That's all I can think of before going to bed. Keep up the good work!

I second what brewtzar said about Terra Stomper.