Forerunner of the Empire

Creature — Human Soldier

When Forerunner of the Empire enters the battlefield, you may search your library for a Dinosaur card, reveal it, then shuffle your library and put that card on top of it.

Whenever a Dinosaur enters the battlefield under your control, you may have Forerunner of the Empire deal 1 damage to each creature.

Combos

• Forerunner of the Empire + Otherworldly Journey
• Cloudshift + Forerunner of the Empire

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (47)

lhetrick13 on Gishath Spared No Expense!!!

2 months ago

Mortlocke - "Interesting philosphy regarding your commander getting combat damage - instead of trying to sneak by, you just hit them harder." Yes, that summarizes my play style very well, lol. I am not to much for gimmicks or shenanigans...I just love a good ol' beatdown!

In terms of card draw/tutoring, ya, the Naya colors are not great at it and I could definitely add in things like Trouble in PairsGC to get more draw or Smothering TitheGC for arguable some of the best ramp out there, but nominally, I am not playing to much from my hand once I get Gishath out as she is tutoring creatures for me. The deck is kinda centered around having 50+ either lands, ramp, or cards I deem an accelerate like Hunting Velociraptor so pretty much every other card in the deck helps get Gishath out fast. From that point on, it is more focused on protection of my boardstate. I am running Forerunner of the Empire, Savage Order, and Congregation at Dawn for creature tutors. So they are in there but jsut not some of the classic ones you would expect. I like the flexability those provide over Worldly Tutor. Finale of Devastation is a beast of a card but since I am not running Ghalta, Primal Hunger, the card kinda loses some of its flair with this decklist. Growing Rites of Itlimoc  ^Flip I actually dropped for Welcome to ...  ^Flip! Very similar cards and I just like the Jurassic Park cards soooo much. Hard not to add those in!

I am working on the Gaea's CradleGC! Hard to justify dropping pretty much 6 months of my monthly MTG budget on a single card but hoping some of my side hustles this summer will let me pick that up. It is not phenominal in this deck like it would be in something like Chatterfang, but it would still be more effective than some of the other lands/cards I have in the decklist!

Thanks for all the thoughts you are posting, I do greatly appreciate the questions and recommendations! It has been about 5 months since I played this deck so I need to sit down and take a look at it again and ask some of the hard questions about why I included some things and why I dropped others.

lhetrick13 on Give your opinion on my dinosaur deck!

1 year ago

Lopende_Band - Like many of the people commenting, I also run a dinosaur deck but Gishath, Sun's Avatar is my commander so the deck (Gishath Spared No Expense!!!)runs slightly different but many of my experiences are likely still relevant.

1. Do I run a good amount of lands (or is it too much) I personally feel like you need around 36-37 lands for dinosaurs. Your average CMC is 4.0 so that means you likely need more lands in the deck that normal plus heavy ramp. Between your lands and ramp/acceleration of the deck, I would make sure you have at least 50-55. That will make it so your deck is very consistent and you can cast those big dinos earlier than like turn 6-7. Urza's Incubator for Knight of the Stampede would be an expensive swap but very worth the investment. Some of your human mana dorks, you may consider swapping out for just mana rocks. Mana rocks are much harder to remove although I would highly recommend Selvala, Heart of the Wilds if you are going to stick with just straight mana dorks and not run a dork with some utility. If you start with her in your opening hand, your deck will be amazing! Forerunner of the Empire also is an amazing card that is a dino tutor and Enrage triggerer. Please consider him in your deck.

2. Should I run more basic lands in favour of lands that come tapped? If possible, run as few tap lands as possible...it will speed up your deck. There is a reason why shock lands like Sacred Foundry, Temple Garden, and Stomping Grounds are expensive and it is because you can chose if they come in tapped or not AND they are fetchable. As you do have a good amount of ramping sorceries and dinosaurs that fetch basic lands, you need at least 8-10 to make sure those cards do not become worthless but tap lands are not good.

3. Do I run too many creatures? (39 seems like a lot) Like I said, you could likely drop some creatures in exchange for more consistent game play. Unlike Gishath, Sun's Avatar where you specifically need to hit dinos to cast them for free, your commander's ability triggers only once per turn and can cast any card. So can drop the creature count for more support.

4. Should I add any more of card draw / targeted removal / board wipe and cut a piece of ramp? You do have very few interaction cards in the deck for removal. I would recommend adding things like Trapjaw Tyrant and Silverclad Ferocidons. Both cards do work. I find that there are very few times I need to wipe the board playing dinos but I actually need to prepare for board wipes. SO I run alot of protection spells to protect my big dino boardstate rather than mess with my opponents.

5. Do I have enough wincons in this deck? (e.g. akroma's will) Overwhelming Stampede and Akroma's Will are nice finishers for stompy decks. You might consider Aggravated Assault to get some extra combats so your big creatures can swing multiple time per turn rather than just one big push.

lhetrick13 on Ty-Ramp-A-Saurus Wrex

1 year ago

Grends27 - Thanks for your thoughts on my deck so I wanted to repay the favor! Disclaimer, looking at your decklist, I am assuming more of a budget build so I will take that into account.

So first off, I like the high creature count of the deck. Similar to my deck, I think I counted 8 creatures that are not dinos that will not hit with Gishath. Most of the non-dino creatures in my deck are there for utility/ramp purposes and seems like yours are filling similar roles. Personally, I am a little underwhelmed by Ilysian Caryatid, Llanowar Elves, and Ixalli's Lorekeeper and try to avoid anything with toughless less than 3 due to Marauding Raptor. I would encourage you to try out Kinjalli's Caller, Shaman of Forgotten Ways, and Intrepid Paleontologist as they provide a similar role but usually have something more than just adding mana/acceleration to the deck. You really need to consider Forerunner of the Empire. The tutor effect is great by itself but the ability to trigger your Enrage dinos is very powerful. Plus with the abundancy of 1/1 tokens in EDH, this is a board wipe for any creatures weaker than say 2 toughness. He is another great utility creature for dinosaur decks!

I like the dinos you included. I know I said I would suggest budget but Trapjaw Tyrant and Silverclad Ferocidons do work. Especially when you have the ability to trigger their Enrage ability multiple times per turn!

Your land count is very similar to mine, I did not count up all the ways you have to ramp up but see a lot of ways to do that via creatures, artifacts, sorceries, instants, etc. I was going to try adding Poetic Ingenuity into my deck as a way to add some additional treasure tokens in the early turns via swinging with smaller dinos to generate mana to cast Gishath. Can not suggest it 100% without trying it but I love the idea of it!

On the enchantment/artifact side, the only thing I would really suggest is adding Strionic Resonator. Similar to me, you are running enough triggered effects that this card will win you games. A good drop for it would be Descendants' Path. I ran that for a while and was just not impressed with the results. Maybe Aggravated Assault if you would like to swing multiple times...combos well with the Poetic Ingenuity!

FOr the Instants/Sorceries, my only suggestion is that with how common boardwipes and interactions are in EDH, I would suggest more single/mass protection. Flawless Maneuver is not to expensive and can be cast for free if Gishath is out. Clever Concealment is nice for those pesky mass exile spells as you can just phase out your creatures and if your deck is firing on all cylinders and you have a board presence, you can usually cast it for free as well!

Otherwise, looks pretty solid! You can tell you have a plan...cast Gishath quick...swing hard...raid dinos...repeat.

Mortlocke on The Predator of Predators

1 year ago

plakjekaas,

If you read Forerunner of the Empire's 2nd paragraph - it's a "may" ability - so I can choose to have his Dino ETB trigger simply not. Thanks for yet another combo to add to the list though, didn't catch that one. I think I need to do a re-write when it comes to Polyraptor infinite combos just to keep track of them all.

plakjekaas on The Predator of Predators

1 year ago

Not really, except maybe Polyraptor + Forerunner of the Empire + Heroic Intervention giving the same non-stoppable loop. That's hard to do on accident though. Some sort of Impact Tremors effect or Goblin Bombardment could turn these into actual wins, but these combo's probably aren't the focus of the deck, you're probably fine.

Mortlocke on Indoraptor Combo

1 year ago

Apologies for taking so long to make a reply, life is busy and all. Before going into your deck, i'll speak on what I think are the ideal cards for your commander, Indoraptor, the Perfect Hybrid. This deck's primary wincons appear to be death by Commander Damage, as your Commander grows exponentially when it's Cast under the right conditions. The Enrage trigger is meant to deal with the opponents left after the initial shock of blowing up one opponent after the combat step.

In my opinion, your deck seems close - but misses the mark when supporting your commander's themes. Some of your cards seem a little too divergent from a nice central theme which I believe is or should be a form of group slug. However, you will break pairity through your commander's enrage ability. Obviously this won't earn you many friends but when you throw around enough damage friends may not even be necessary.

The Good

Objectively, your deck has all the usual suspects when it comes to solid reliable options that help with consistency. Demonic Tutor, Grim Tutor, etc are always the best options when you have {B} available to you. Same for the other colors. Good job on making sure you have your options available to you when you need them. Great manabase as well - you've picked essentially all the best options. I would however advise a word of caution regarding the inclusions of Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth - fixing your opponents manabase can push them multiple turns ahead as well and cost you the game. I'd typically recommend cutting these unless you can break pairty and find a use for them that far outstrips the benefit to your opponents (e.g. include Cabal Coffers for urborg).

The Bad

As painful as it is to cut or change themes, here are the cards I think would better suit your commander:

• Caltrops: A reliable method to trigger your commander when Pyrohemia or Pestilence isn't on the field. it also punishes opponents as well. However, a word of caution here - if you can't deal damage to opponents before you cast your commander, then this will result in a nonbo or anti-synergy. Take or leave this one.

• Rite of Passage: Enrage naturally wants to kill creatures off, so why not make that an advantage for you and break pairty?

• Roaming Throne: Double up on triggers.

• Wrathful Raptors: Double up on triggers.

• Raging Regisaur: Did I say Double up on triggers? I feel like I haven't.

• Fiery Confluence: When you simply need to get another trigger from your commander.

• Forerunner of the Empire: The tutor effect is neat for when you need to get another Dinosaur - but what's really great is his second ability which you guessed it - gets you another trigger from your commander when said other Dino hits the battlefield.

• Assassin's Trophy/Beast Within: Your deck doesn't have very much interaction, which will lead to situations where you will find yourself wanting to do something about a problematic card - but unable to do so.

• Deflecting Swat/Deadly Rollick: The free cast spells are great in any deck - and thanks to the "recently" released commander masters these cards are cheaper than they've ever been.

• Compy Swarm: This creature will get your consistent Dinosaur ETB triggers as your opponent's creatures die off from Pyrohemia and the like triggers.

• Plague Spitter: It does what Pyrohemia and Pestilence does - with caveats. With the effect being only once per turn

• but free, you don't have to worry about keeping mana open to use it. But it's on a body and can be easily removed.

• Ranging Raptors: As you are using Enrage, why not ramp while you're at it?

• Sword of Hearth and Home: Given your commander's first ability is an ETB trigger, when not have the option of potentially increasing it's power and toughness after a particularly vicious turn? The ramp also doesn't hurt to boot. The best part though, is that you don't have to target your commander - need another creature to ETB so you can trigger something else? You can do that too.

• The Ozolith: This is obviously an expensive suggestion - and I don't know your budget. But this card has some very obvious synergy with your Commander that would definitely make all those recasts worth it - and you know you'll be recasting your commander.

The Ugly

The Proliferate/Poison cards are an interesting method of dealing with opponents early - but this theme unfortunately requires much more cards to be built around it to work in my opinion. Proliferating the +1/+1 counters and the poison counters already on an opponent is great and all - but I don't think that will create consistently lasting and reliable game states that are favorable to you. It only takes a single piece of interaction to make the whole process fall, and that interaction only needs to target your single point of failure - your commander.

You have a solid deck, but I think over time as you play it in pods and ponder your themes you may make make some changes or tweaks. I hope my card suggestions are something useful to you. +1 from me, if I haven't already.

jdogz32 on Dinosaurs

1 year ago

I love dinosaurs but there's alot of hype since they just printed a bunch of new ones. Your deck has to many 1 of and 2 ofs. You are going to need more 3-4 copies of less different dinos for more consistent game play. Since your deck is based around the enrage ability that is what I will focus on. For starters I'm going to suggest taking these cards out.

Zetalpa, Primal Dawn - too expensive and has no relevance other than being a dinosaur

Wakening Sun's Avatar - too expensive and there's much cheaper board wipes than an 8 Mana dinosaur. This guy is extremely good in commander but not very good for 1v1 60 card decks.

Verdant Sun's Avatar - again he's a good card but there's no relevance to the strategy other than he's a dinosaur and he's a 7 Mana drop.

Rampaging Ferocidon - you are running a creature heavy deck so his ability will hurt you way more than it will your opponent. If you are adding him for the lifefain there's another dinosaur that cost the same but doesn't have that same drawback.

Gishath, Sun's Avatar - extremely good card but he's very expensive for what your trying to build. He will go back down in price eventually but for now I'd suggest taking him out.

Gigantosaurus - he's to Mana expensive. In a 3 color deck trying to get 5 green is going to be more of a challenge than he's worth. If you were running mono green he'd be a great add but for right now I'd take him out.

Bellowing Aegisaur - for 6 Mana the game would gave to continue to go on for a few more turns to get any real value out of him.

Cards you should add more of

Marauding Raptor - one of the best cards in an enrage deck for an immediate activation and makes your dinos cheaper

Ranging Raptors - great for early game and consistent Mana ramp throughout the game.

Raging Regisaur - great for enrage triggers and offers you some removal

Ripjaw Raptor offers consistent card draw which cannot be understated.

Forerunner of the Empire he offers consisten board enrage triggers and you get to search for whichever dino you want

Cards I'd add you don't have listed Drover of the Mighty - offers cheap Mana ramp and is a 3/3

Raptor Hatchling - not very good by himself but when you put him with Forerunner of the Empire he gives you 2 separate counts of enrage.

Last thing is with a deck like this your running too few lands. You need at minimum 23-24 lands for running large creatures that you are hard casting. I know this is alot but I hope this helps.

ChargerK on Dinotopia

1 year ago

probably up your land count to atleast 37-38, and I'll highly commend a card, Forerunner of the Empire as it can heavily combo with cards such as Ranging Raptors + Ripjaw Raptor + Silverclad Ferocidons , and has an infinite loop to wipe all other creatures and give you infinite 5/5s with Polyraptor

polyraptor etb, forerunner stack, polyraptor copy etb, forerunner stack

hits others.

I will also add that I do in fact play a dino deck as my main deck, Atla Palani, Nest Tender to be specific.