Ghalta, Primal Hunger

Legendary Creature — Dinosaur

This spell costs {X} less to cast, where X is the total power of creatures you control.

Trample (This creature can deal excess combat damage to the player or planeswalker this is attacking if lethal combat damage would be dealt to all blocking creatures.)

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	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
Pre-release	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Standard	Legal
Standard Brawl	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (49)

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.

DreadKhan on The Mimeospasm [Reanimator Terminator] - primer

9 months ago

I've heard of people using Phyrexian Dreadnought in decks like this, it's easy to get into the graveyard if you draw it and it's always 12 counters, which is usually enough to be impressive. It is $$$ though!

It might be too cute, but if you have a huge Lord of Extinction in your bin it'd be nice if you also had a Triskelion in there, right? If its late enough you can just kill everyone, early maybe hold it over everyone's head, the ability to just wipe out one opponent on a whim can be entertaining. You can also use it as a nifty board wipe, but that'd be a bit of a let down IMHO.

It's almost certainly too cute, but I have a real soft spot for Scavenged Brawler, if you want it's a sweet buff from the graveyard, but since it also has all those abilities as a creature you can use it as a decent base body in a pinch I guess.

Is 12 enough power to matter consistently? Ghalta, Primal Hunger is an old beefy beater, and similar to Phyrexian Dreadnaught he can come out for very little mana, but this guy can technically stay around, and only costs GG if you have a few bodies out. GG for a 12/12 Trample could be helpful, but it's also a 12 power body when the opponent wipes the board you can use for counters.

Do you get targeted much? Dawnstrider is a repeatable Fog effect that can soak up your most dangerous opponent's attack while also putting a card in your graveyard! I love this card in my Meren deck, where I also use Silverglade Pathfinder, this offers Rampant Growth and a discard source, though it can only find a Basic (looks like you've got 5). Pathfinder is worse than Dawnstrider, but both are a useful effect to have access to situationally, I love an early Pathfinder (as long as I can pitch something useful), but Dawnstrider is better later game.

Do other people you play against use graveyard strategies? Even if they don't I wonder if Consuming Aberration ends up big enough to bother with as a counter source? I guess if you're planning to Jarad people you could make Aberration your base creature and mill people for a bit until it's big enough to end everyone?

I think this is my last idea, Necrogoyf can have a decent power if the game has gone long, not as good as Lord of Extinction, but you can't run two of that, right? Do the people you play against make a point of using lots of creatures? For that matter there is also Urborg Lhurgoyf. I can't see you ever wanting more than 1 of these, but I felt like giving you the option of upfront mill or discard over time.

Here's hoping you haven't already written off all of these, either way nice work on your list!

Coward_Token on Fuck it, late Outlaw of …

1 year ago

AFAIK all cards are spoiled now.

The set managed to get me surprisingly hopeful by including Pirates in the Outlaw batch, only to make me disappointed. At most, the new Malcolm can replace a french vanilla flier in my Admiral Beckett Brass deck. At least Cactus Preserve can do some work with Ghalta, Primal Hunger.

Felix Five-Boots and Vihaan, Goldwaker are pretty neat

idfkgabe on Gluntch, 5, 6, 7 player Commander

1 year ago

Soo where is Ghalta, Primal Hunger?

Coward_Token on Lost Caverns of Ixalan

1 year ago

First look

My thoughts Show

As it has somehow avoided being banned in EDH all this time, I welcome the reprinting of Mana Crypt.

"Welcome to...": do the new Walls lose all their abilities?

Jeff Goldblum joins Hugh Grant as yet another A-list Hollywood actor that you can now play as your commander. Anyway, the card is kind of like... mutual theft? Seems hard to optimize because if you include synergy like Faerie Mastermind and Agent of Treachery, there's a risk that you end up accidentaly exiling them for your opponents to use. (Also, I was going to be a know-it-all and say that mathematicians aren't scientists, but chaos theory said "no".)

Ojer Axonil: I kinda wish this used the Transformers "More Than Meets the Eye" technology so that it basically functioned as a transforming MDFC.

The Skullspore Nexus: Will try to fit in my Ghalta, Primal Hunger deck. If the big girl dies, you get a replacement that can in turn give a discount on recasting her. Also, the basic play pattern of Turn 5: Cast Ghalta T6: Cast this and activate it like an X=1 Exponential Growth, netting you a commander that can one-shot anyone who doesn't have more than 3 toughness worth of blockers, is solid.

Breeches: I didn't know I needed this for my Admiral Beckett Brass deck. The pseudo-evasion mode synergizes well with menace, and the Treasure mode + his mana cost sets up casting the Admiral on-curve quite smoothly, especially if you managed to get out two other Pirates already. IDK why they included first strike and on-curve P/T and an attack trigger that doesn't actually requires himself to attack and pseudo-evasion, seems a bit pushed even in my eyes.

Huatli: The powercreeper within me wish she functioned like the March of the Machine Praetors, transforming back at the end of the Saga.

NV_1980 on The Spirit of Commander

1 year ago

Some ideas:

• Dense Foliage: a hug option. If you aim for everyone's monsters (including) yours to die in glorious combat, it wouldn't do if someone could off them with spells.
• Dictate of Karametra: more hug. Everyone has plenty of mana to cast their big creatures.
• Fecundity: aaaaand more hug. Ensures that the death of any creature results in more opportunities to cast other big creatures.
• Heartbeat of Spring: more mana for everyone!
• Ghalta, Primal Hunger: seems to make sense in a green BC-deck.
• Soul of the Harvest: such great draw in a deck featuring this many creatures. And a nice beat-stick to boot.
• Vigor: opposing creatures can't hurt your creatures anymore; they can only strengthen them!
• Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus: ensures the strength/toughness of your BC's beat those of the opponents' BC's.

Have fun with the brew!

idfkgabe on Aesi, Who Layeth the Smacketh Down

1 year ago

Have you ever thought of Ghalta, Primal Hunger or Steel Leaf Champion.

nbarry223 on Viga-BOOM! (Primer + SB Guide)

1 year ago

Yes, I’ve looked at it before. It doesn’t do enough in my opinion. My baseline for justifying a beefy creature is Primeval Titan which is capable of chaining itself into more (essentially goes off at 7 mana most of the time) and swinging same turn it comes into play.

Ghalta, Primal Hunger is a creature without any protection that costs ~10 mana unless I am already super far ahead. If I am already far enough ahead that it is a comparable cost to Primeval Titan I’d much rather have something that does something the turn it comes down to help win that turn. If my board isn’t already big, I probably can’t cast it.

It’s unfortunately a win-more card, and a less impressive one than something like Mosswort Bridge or Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion is due to the tutorability of lands in the deck.