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Gishath, Immortal Dinosaurs [Primer] [2023]

Commander / EDH Aggro Multiplayer Ramp RGW (Naya)

Mitrian

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Creature (30)

Sorcery (5)

Land (37)

Instant (7)

Commander (1)

Commander: Gishath, Sun's Avatar

Artifact (11)

Enchantment (9)

Sideboard

Creature (6)

Enchantment (4)

Instant (2)

Sorcery (3)

Dinosaurs go RAWWRRRR!

The goal for the deck is to get to Gishath, protect him with either Darksteel Plate or Whispersilk Cloak (or any other spells that grant evasion and/or indestructible), manipulate the top few cards of the deck, and swing in to increase my board presence. My usual group runs a lot of board wipes, bounce and removal, so I also need to include reliable recursion (Faith's Reward/Praetor's Counsel) or protection (Teferi's Protection/Boros Charm). Erratic Portal helps keep Gishath out of the command zone and cheaper to recast, but is also very powerful for protection against other voltron commanders. And Scroll Rack is incredible for stacking your top deck full of dinos for when Gishath swings in.

Read on for a full breakdown of the deck and strategy.

Gishath, Sun's Avatar is a beatdown commander. Because of his beastly effect which cheats in creatures, you really want to be hitting opponents in the face with him, so in some ways you build this like a traditional voltron commander. As a result, in some games, there will come a point when it can be easier to win with 21 commander damage than by going wide. But that is his power, because it gives you options. And once you lock in evasion on Gishath, your opponents will either have to board wipe or divide their attention among all your dinos instead of just your commander. Any removal spell targeting your Polyraptor or Zetalpa, Primal Dawn is one less for Gishath to have to deal with.

All that said, and because Gishath costs 8 to play, we have to build some protection and some recursion into the deck, because you will eventually have to rebuild your board state if you want to win -- that's just how EDH goes most of the time. And of course, in addition to all that, you can't let your opponents run too wild either. So, these are the packages we need to include:

  1. Mana acceleration for Gishath and all our big spells.
  2. Protection for Gishath because recasting and commander tax gets expensive.
  3. Draw, Tutors and Top Deck manipulation to maximize Gishath's effect.
  4. Removal and Disruption to keep opponents in check.
  5. The Dinosaurs, of course.
  6. Enrage triggering and overwhelming beatdowns for games where you can't get to 21.
  7. Get in for damage, and beatdown to win.

I'll walk through my thinking and theory on each of those packages below, as well as my choices for lands.

Let's be honest, we're a massive battlecruiser. We need a lot of fuel to captain this thing, and we need it fast. This list is our best shot at getting up to speed in time before we crash.

I'm usually not a fan of these next type of card, but they've proven fairly effective for what we're doing here.

  • Urza's Incubator is the best of these, as it's an artifact so it won't die to all the enrage enablement we have, and 3 mana for a 2 mana discount is excellent.
  • Knight of the Stampede is 4 mana, so it can still accelerate playing out Gishath a turn sooner, so it's worth it just for that, but I do wish it were 3 mana instead. (Of course!)
  • Marauding Raptor is an odd card, and if it didn't have the discount, it probably wouldn't have made the final cuts, but it's mostly here to help enable enrage. The mana discount is just a nice bonus that helps it stay in the deck.

Our general game plan revolves around Gishath getting through for combat damage, and since he starts out at 8CMC, we also want to avoid repeated removal, as after 2 or 3 recasts, playing him starts to become mana prohibitive. Following are some of the ways to help keep commander tax low.

  • Boros Charm is the more flexible version of Heroic Intervention, because while it provides indestructible when needed, it can also deliver a knockout in some cases. Digging 14 cards is awesome, but 14 commander damage might be lethal in some cases.
  • Whispersilk Cloak helps to protect from targeted removal. It's also here to help ensure attacks get through.
  • Rogue's Passage is more about getting through for damage, but not getting killed by combat tricks helps keep him in the game, too.
  • Spirit en-Dal is along those same lines, and is never meant to played. It's only useful in hand to make Gishath unblockable every turn.
  • Darksteel Plate for obvious reasons. As equipment, it can be moved to other creatures for combo enablement and other good fun.
  • Teferi's Protection is a last resort to keep our board state intact, as well as our life total.
  • Temur Sabertooth works great to protect from targeted removal, and is also included for some nice combo action as well. Not idea for Gishath, but at least helps avoid increased commander tax.
  • Temple Altisaur is here for the damage reduction, which is critical to the deck is a number of ways, not the least of which is combat damage.
  • Shaman en-Kor redirects lethal damage, ideally to our enrage dinos for value, but even if not, sparing our commander or others from lethal damage is great!
  • Erratic Portal can bounce the commander back to hand in response to board wipes, targeted removal or detrimental combat tricks. Great option to have in the back pocket. Can also bounce opponent's creatures if they're tapped out.
  • Yavimaya Hollow gives cheap regeneration in response to (some) removal and combat tricks.
  • Command Beacon helps with commander tax, something that we keep mentioning, because it's a pretty big deal.
  • Sorrow's Path can mess with enemy blocks, and is leveraged to allow Gishath to trample through. The 2 damage to creatures is often beneficial as well, for enrage.
  • Maze of Ith is more about protecting our life total, but it can pull back our own creatures too if needed.
  • Faith's Reward is less about protection, and more about board wipe recovery. If commander tax is getting too expensive, you could theoretically choose to let Gishath stay in the graveyard if you have this card in hand. Just better hope no one counters the cast.

As with all Commander builds, draw effects can't be ignored, we don't ever want to be stuck in the position of top decking our way out of trouble. We only include a couple options, but they are good ones:

  • Garruk's Uprising draws on entry, and any time one of our dinos enters (most of them). As a nice bonus, it also ensures everything has trample.
  • Ripjaw Raptor has an enrage ability that draws a card, and with all the ways we have to trigger that, is very solid in the deck.
  • The Great Henge draws for every creature that enters, regardless of size.
  • Selvala, Heart of the Wilds has some potential draw as well, although once Ghalta and Mavren are in play, that's the end of that.

Now due to the ability on Gishath, having cards that allow us to stack the deck in our favor can have huge payouts. You can go with luck of the draw, or you can put cards on top that you really want to come in for free. In some ways it's like running tutors, but we don't have to stop the game and search and shuffle. Ideally, we use these cards and abilities at instant speed in response to Gishath's trigger.

  • Scroll Rack is one of the best cards in the deck. Not only does it effectively double our hand size by giving us access to the next X cards in the library, it allows us to put specific cards (i.e. big dinos) on the top of the library so Gishath can bring them in for free.
  • Reinforcements are here to pull some big dinos from the graveyard to library, for Gishath to retrieve for us.
  • Congregation at Dawn is a tutor and grabs us three dinos to stack on top of the deck. Absolutely perfect for us!

And speaking of tutors, while I don't usually run many in my builds, I also include Defense of the Heart to help us keep from falling too far behind, as this deck has a tendency to do. If I'm able to play this early enough, it is a huge boost. I will often grab cards like Nyxbloom Ancient, Selvala, or Wayward Swordtooth in the early game. Late game, I'll fetch out things like Zoopa, Polyraptor, or Apex Altisaur, depending on the board state.

Forerunner of the Empire is the other tutor we run in the deck, although his primary purpose here is as enrage enabler. Hopefully we draw him early, and in such cases, I'm usually going to search up Wayward Swordtooth or Ranging Raptors.

We don't have a lot here as most of our interaction happens during the combat phase, but we have some good options:

  • Aura Shards great repeatable removal of artifacts and enchantments.
  • Beast Within hits anything and we're not scared a little beast token.
  • Krosan Grip breaks into infinite combos and eliminates threats.
  • Decimate hits up to four targets, can be spread across multiple enemies if needed.
  • Vandalblast overloaded is just such an awesome shift in power and board presence.
  • Pyrohemia isn't specifically for removal, but it can certainly accomplish that, and likely our creatures will be bigger than the opponents in most cases.
  • Silverclad Ferocidons forces each opponent to sacrifice when enraged.
  • Apex Altisaur has a fight mechanic on enrage, which triggers another fight, which triggers another fight, until we're ready to stop. Pretty freakin' great on a 10/10 body. Moving Darksteel Plate onto him first turns him into a one-sided board wipe (assuming no hexproof or indestructible).
  • Erratic Portal isn't reliable removal, since the opponent only has to pay 1, but it can fun when someone is tapped out. And if it's end of turn before mine and I haven't used it yet, I'll often tap it just to make someone spend the mana.

When I first put this list together, the selection of dinosaurs I found in Gatherer was… ok, but recently there's been some really nice ones added and it's gotten very difficult to narrow down the list to fit into the deck. (See the Exclusions section below.) But these are the ones I've settled on, listed in order of greatest power to least.

We have seven dinos with an enrage effect. That's not a huge amount, but some of the effects they provide are significant, so it's very worthwhile to build around that trigger. Following are the cards included to help us both to trigger enrage, and to prevent dying from too much enrage triggering!

  • Forerunner of the Empire is awesome, but must be really clumsy, since he also damages himself, which is unfortunate since he's only 3 toughness. But he does his job well for the most part.
  • Marauding Raptor is a little more direct, only hitting the creature that just entered, but he also hits a bit harder. Thankfully, only Dockside Extortionist would die to this guy. (Shaman en-Kor can protect himself.)
  • Pyrohemia is an all-start in the deck, for obvious reasons. If it's ever in play while Cacophodon and Darksteel Plate are both in play, and your life is highest at the table, you just won! (That's a lot of big "ifs" I realize.)
  • Caltrops -- I like this because it encourages attacking for us, and discourages attacking for opponents. Unlike Pyrohemia and Fire Ants, you can selectively choose which creatures take the damage, and it won't hurt our weaker creatures we don't want to attack with anyway.
  • Shaman en-Kor - This guy is pretty amazing when you consider how it works. With him, you can save your creatures in combat and spread the damage around, ideally sending non-lethal damage and triggering enrage all over the place. Less effective if you don't have many creatures out, but on a big board, he does amazing things. He can also sacrifice himself to save another more important creature. Note that he can also redirect damage dealt to opponents' creatures too, which allows for some interesting political and tactical effects.
  • Sorrow's Path - Being a land offers greater protection from removal, and effectively costs 0CMC to play. The changing of blockers makes combat choices more difficult for opponents, but the real value is the damage to all creatures.

As a beatdown deck, we want to do a lot of damage. We focus a lot of that on the commander for the ability trigger, but honestly, we'll punish with all the dinos if we can. Below are some of the cards that enable so nasty scenarios for our opponents. First, let's pump up our dinos:

  • Rite of Passage is amazing in this build, and is actually an upgrade to Cathars' Crusade. The latter only triggers when a creature enters, which in most cases only happens once. Rite of Passage, on the other hand, can trigger every time you use Pyrohemia, or trigger a fight, are blocked in combat, or just when you enter and get munched on by raptors. Really strong card and enables some infinite combos simply because it keeps creatures from dying.
  • Bellowing Aegisaur is very similar, except even better, it pumps all creatures… except itself which is the major drawback. Combined with Rite of Passage is the ultimate scenario.
  • Mayael's Aria is a once per turn pump, most of the time.
  • The Great Henge pumps every creature once on entry.
  • Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider is the creature form of Doubling Season except in our case it's better because we don't really mess with tokens much, and because this suppresses opponents counters really nicely.
  • Mirari's Wake is just a nice little passive anthem that I'm always happy to have out there doing its thing.

There are two more big cards that often have a huge impact on the board.

  • Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus is Xenagos on steroids, doubling all our dinos during attack phase. This not only increases damage dealt, but also allows for deeper digging into the deck with Gishath's ability. Lots of fun here with this ugly guy.
  • Fiery Emancipation is amazing, but also somewhat scary, as it turns Pyrohemia into a much deadlier effect. One trigger can kill some of the weaker creatures we run, and Rite of Passage no longer keeps up with the damage being dealt. However, if you swing in with Gishath unblocked, that's lethal commander damage in one hit, and other big creatures will be trampling in for some massive damage as well.

Will come back and add more content here soon.

There were definitely a good number of cards I wanted to find slots for but ultimately cut to get the list down to 100. Here's a few:

  • AEther Flash was originally in the deck for enrage triggering, but I felt like I had more than I needed, so would rather have this spot go to another dino instead.
  • Xenagos, God of Revels is amazing, but aside from the indestructible I think Zoopa is much better in this spot, and I couldn't justify running both.
  • Etali, Primal Conqueror   this will probably hang out in the sideboard to slot in for Etali, Primal Storm from time to time. Both are really good, but as above, I couldn't justify taking two slots for it.
  • Ghalta, Primal Hunger big dumb beater, that we can very frequently play for two mana in this deck. But aside from combat damage, it does nothing for us, and I removed it in favor of creatures that also provided other values.
  • Gigantosaurus is the same story.
  • The Tarrasque was similar enough to Apex Altisaur, but lacked the enrage trigger that makes him so powerful, and fun!
  • Titanoth Rex is another one that is mostly just a big dumb beater. Most of our big bads already have trample, and we have other ways to provide it if needed.
  • Zacama, Primal Calamity! Oh man, I hated removing this one. Unfortunately, I was rarely casting it from hand, so the untap bonus wasn't used much, but I do miss the removal abilities, and may find a way to bring this one back in at some point.
  • Zetalpa, Primal Dawn is another one that I miss, mostly for the indestructible. It was a good target for Nemesis Mask, too!
  • Asceticism - I love the option for regeneration, but otherwise I'd much rather have Privileged Position for the same mana.
  • Privileged Position is near the top of the list for returning to the deck, just a good, good card to protect our board state. Unforatunately did nothing against board wipes.
  • Nemesis Mask is fantastic for getting damage through, which is exactly what we want to do with Gishath. Unfortunately, I found that I had to do too much fiddling to make it worthwhile in this build, as the "decoy" rarely survived and I had to keep moving it to other creatures that I put in the deck for a reason and then I'd just send them off to die, it just worked better in theory than in practice, so it got removed.
  • Akroma's Memorial - Indestructible for all our creatures would be awesome! But for 7 mana, and finding what to remove to make room, I just couldn't make the case for it.
  • Blade of Selves -- Attached to Etali, Primal Storm for more free spells, or to Apex Altisaur for more fights, or to Verdant Sun's Avatar for massive burst of life gain, or to Topiary Stomper for more land fetches, or to Regisaur Alpha for more tokens, and so on. There are a limited number of awesome targets, but even just giving it to a big beater like Silverclad Ferocidons is really good for delivering a beatdown.
  • True Conviction -- Double Strike is powerful on big creatures. Lifelink is just bonus. Because it's an enchantment, it's possible it gets removed before you get to attack. Because it's an enchantment, it's also possible you'll get many uses out of it.
  • Cathars' Crusade is one of my favorite cards of all time, but I find that Rite of Passage actually works better in this deck for the more repeatable effect. Cathars' Crusade also benefits with a greater quantity of creatures entering, rather than a smaller quantity of big creatures like we have with this build.

Prefer to keep the page clean, so I'm moving my massive maybeboard to this section to keep it tucked away, but still available if needed.

Thanks for reading my long-winded primer! I write these not for Internet points, but because it's become part of my process for building and fine-tuning a deck. I find when I have to write out justifications for my card choices, it's easier to be honest and objective about which cards are actually effective, and which are just 'pet' cards. However, please feel free to comment and share thoughts. I welcome alternative opinions!

As for who I am… I'm a veteran player, who started playing Magic back in the days of Alpha -- which means, yeah, I'm getting pretty old. I once had my own Black Lotus, more than one I believe, and I of course played them unsleeved. Back then, as a teenager, I didn't like the card, because I didn't even dream about things like Turn 1 wins. So they were traded away. Not that it matters because my early collection of cards, which included the moxen, duals, CoPs, and other craziness (by today's standards anyway) were all heavily played, bent up, and ultimately lost over the course of moves and life transitions.

In my thirties I got back into Magic, spending a lot of time and money playing Standard during the days of Lorwyn, Alara, Zendikar, Mirrodin, and Innistrad. I never won any big tournaments, but I played in quite a few. Along the way, I reacquired some of the Power Nine as well as cards like Gaea's Cradle, Candelabra of Tawnos, and even a Timetwister, and I had full playsets of every card produced during those 5-7 years, so could build any Standard deck I wanted -- man that was a lot of fun. But eventually, I lost the taste for the ultra-competitive scene and switched back to kitchen table Magic where I fell in love with Commander. My first Commander ever built was Maelstrom Wanderer and I still try to keep that deck current and relevant.

I've stopped spending as much money these days, and play mostly with MPC proxies, which means I don't worry about card costs much at all. I feel strongly that people should play with whatever cards they enjoy playing with, not just the ones they can afford to buy. Magic is an expensive hobby, but finances shouldn't be what prevents participation at any power level (where prizes aren't involved). I do, however, still support WotC and I buy almost every Commander pre-con deck they make, which lately has gotten crazy with the number being produced.

There are some elements of Magic that I tend to avoid -- including MLD (generally not fun for people to play against), excessive tutors (makes many decks too linear for me, and searching and shuffling often slows things down), and extra turns (often creates "feels bad" moments and more downtime for opponents). I respect the power of these cards and styles, but I'm more interested in games where everyone is having fun, and not just me.

I build and play to win (without those cards, usually), in every game, but ultimately I really don't mind losing -- I just love to play.

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Top Ranked
  • Achieved #41 position overall 6 years ago
Date added 6 years
Last updated 11 months
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

13 - 4 Mythic Rares

46 - 5 Rares

21 - 4 Uncommons

6 - 2 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 4.16
Tokens Beast 3/3 G, City's Blessing, Copy Clone, Dinosaur 3/3 G, Dinosaur Beast X/X G, Dinosaur X/X G, Monarch Emblem, Treasure, Vampire 1/1 W
Folders Commander, EDH, Commander Dinosaur
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