Trapjaw Tyrant

Creature — Dinosaur

Enrage - Whenever Trapjaw Tyrant is dealt damage, exile target creature an opponent controls until Trapjaw Tyrant leaves the battlefield.

Combos

• Marauding Raptor + Trapjaw Tyrant

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 (49)

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.

lhetrick13 on

2 years ago

zigail - Creature cheat is something {G} excels in...casting big stompy creatures for less or for free is a solid plan so your concept is not bad. All wallisface and I are saying is that this deck is not optimized for this strategy specifically for for Modern play because Modern is just such a harsh and angry format.

Essentially your whole deck hinges on your opening hand...you MUST have at least 2-3 lands in your opening hand, hope you draw 1-2 more in the next few turns, and hope you either start with or draw Treefolk Harbinger, Bosk Banneret, and Leaf-Crowned Elder within the first few turns...which wallisface has pointed out even if all that works out, Leaf-Crowned Elder has no built in protection and you have no ability to provide any. So this crucial lynchpin and all the setup can be complete undone by a simple removal spell, likely staling your deck entirely.

I run a deck that is "similar" to this concept of building around a single creature (Beyond the Grave (Abzan)) as it is built around Haakon, Stromgald Scourge's ability to reanimate knight creatures. Excluding the lands, the other creatures, and 4x copies of Haakon, the rest of the cards are usually focused around finding Haakon and getting him into play as soon as possible. This is done via cards like Collected Company, Eldritch Evolution, Finale of Devastation, Pyre of Heroes, Aether Vial, etc...The point I am making is that the deck has so many ways to fetch Haakon or any knight I may need really. Adding additional ways to "force" your strategy will help your deck be much more consistent. As it is right now, the ideal combo you mentioned in your comment will be pretty rare and most times, this deck will struggle to find a board presence.

Other than adding cards to help fetch Leaf-Crowned Elder more consistently, I think adding some ramp to help cast those big treefolk earlier or adding in additional ways to accelerate the deck by lowering the mana cost of those treefolk would go a long ways. An example of accelerating a deck built around big stompy creatures with mild ramp or lowering creature cost that I can provide is my dino themed deck Spared No Expense!!!. 8 cards lower the cost of dinosaurs and then I have 7 others that provide me some ramp making it so I can cast things like Regisaur Alpha or Trapjaw Tyrant on turn 3. This makes it so that despite having a >3.5 CMC, the deck is very consistent and fast. I know you mentioned you want to hit more on the creature cheat ability of Leaf-Crowned Elder but just food for thought on ways I feel the deck could potentially be improved.

Good luck and happy brewing, hope some of the material I mentioned was helpful!

Jett2112 on Dino Town

2 years ago

Not much of a comment but here's some stuff to consider based on edhrec and my dragons deck. Once we playtest this a bit I'll have more for ya. Ancient Tomb Atzocan Seer Boseiju, Who Endures Chaos Warp Commune with Dinosaurs Congregation at Dawn Finale of Devastation Goring Ceratops Kodama's Reach Marauding Raptor Pyrohemia Ranging Raptors Return of the Wildspeaker Rhythm of the Wild Shadow in the Warp Temple of the False God The World Tree Trapjaw Tyrant Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth Elvish Mystic Fyndhorn Elves Llanowar Elves Realmwalker Selvala, Heart of the Wilds Shaman of Forgotten Ways Avacyn's Pilgrim

lhetrick13 on Spared No Expense!!!

2 years ago

DreadKhan - Ya, both of those two can be knockout punches with the right support around them but running 3xTrapjaw Tyrant feels excessive at times and same with 4xForerunner of the Empire. I will need to play around with that and see if I like Utopia Sprawl and if so, how many copies I feel like the deck needs...I am imagining like a turn 1 Utopia Sprawl, turn 2 Kinjalli's Caller and Marauding Raptor, followed by a Turn 3 enraged dino that has up to a CMC of 5...that is not shabby...

I have done alot of swapping things around over the last couple weeks for testing and you are right, I likely need to balance my lands again based on the cards I currently have or will add to it. With the shock, filter, fetch lands as well as Ranging Raptors I usually do not have issues getting the mana I need to cast what ever but there are times where I have a killer opening hand but I have the wrong color mana to cast everything within the first 3 turns :(

lhetrick13 on Spared No Expense!!!

2 years ago

DreadKhan - Utopia Sprawl has been on my wish list for a while but I feel like you are right this may be a good fit for it considering the abundance of high CMC dinos in the deck. If i can procure some in the new future I will need to test that out. Any thoughts on what you would cut to make room for 3-4? My first thought was 1xForerunner of the Empire and 1xTrapjaw Tyrant but after that things start getting tight!

I looked at Pyrohemia but Forerunner of the Empire provides a very similar mass enrage trigger ability when creatures enter the field so I decided to go that route.

Metallic Mimic and some of the other shapeshifters you mentioned have some merit...The +1/+1 counter ability is not exactly needed with how big most dinos are for their cost but it would give a cheaper option. Realmwalker wmight be a good addition to give me a "larger hand" as you mentioned and Masked Vandal would give me a decent artifact/enchantment removal option seeing how that is something dinos struggle with.

Good stuff and some ideas to try out! Thanks for your thoughts!

lhetrick13 on Prehistoric Rumble!

3 years ago

Radiant_Draconis - Good stuff! Maybe I will see if I can add one more Marauding Raptor in then. Between him and Forerunner of the Empire those are excellent cards to get enrage going and it is great to drop in like Trapjaw Tyrant and clear two creatures from the board. Now if only there was a dinosaur that gave other dinosaurs hexproof or some useful skill! They are so big and costly and in modern, removal spells are so prevalent it is so sad to see a 9 CMC dino get taken out by a 3 CMC instant.

Kinda makes sense you like Heaven / Earth for some personal flair. I mean, you are running a big meteor in a dino deck. Ironic and appropriate! Just wanted to make sure you did know there are options :)

You are preaching to the choir my friend about that high CMC! I have found I gravitate towards heavily aggressive decks by nature but they are not the most fun for my friends to play against. I think this my dino deck I am putting together will be a better mixture of keeping things competitive for them and fun for me. Our decks are pretty different but thanks for the ideas and inspiration to actually put one together!

discipleofgary73 on Mono-White Keyword Banding

3 years ago

Banding is always funny.
For ramp, one of my favorite monowhite cards is Oath of Lieges. Sure, it can help opponents, but group hugs are what banding is all about, right??? There are some of the classic artifacts people have mentioned, but I want to put Burnished Hart, Sword of the Animist, Wayfarer's Bauble, Monologue Tax and Terrain Generator on your radar. Oh, and Expedition Map to grab the Cathedral. Generally, I think 7-9 pieces of dedicated ramp in an EDH deck is about right, depending on the speed, colors, and avg cmc.
Outside of ramp, War Elephant would be good just to have a trample ability out on a creature. Nemesis Mask can make sure Abu Ja'far can really do some damage. You could also try out the totem armor enchantments to make it easier to reuse Abu in this way. Trapjaw Tyrant would also be funny in a band. Other than that, the only things that come to mind are Felidar Retreat, Kismet, Mass Calcify/Tragic Arrogance, and Blinding Light .