Zacama, Primal Calamity

Legendary Creature — Dinosaur

Vigilance, reach, trample

When Zacama, Primal Calamity enters the battlefield, if you cast it, untap all lands you control.

{2}{R}: Zacama deals 3 damage to target creature.

{2}{G}: Destroy target artifact or enchantment.

{2}{W}: You gain 3 life.

Combos

• Chulane, Teller of Tales + Umbral Mantle + Zacama, Primal Calamity
• Sanctum of Eternity + Zacama, Primal Calamity
• Cloudstone Curio + Kinjalli's Caller + Zacama, Primal Calamity
• Marauding Raptor + Polyraptor + Zacama, Primal Calamity

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)

TheForsakenOne on Omnath, locus of all

5 months ago

You need a lot more cards that trigger Omnath, ideally you want to be hitting it every single turn but with lands that's already not going to happen. You barely have 6 cards in the deck that he'll trigger on, and while he will still draw you a card each turn you want to be adding that free mana. If you want a more goodstuff commander I'd recommend switching to Kenrith, the Returned King as a card that has more general value.

You seem to have a lot of just bad cards in here, giving the impression that you built this out of the cards you have lying around. Everyone has to start there, I did the same when I was starting out, but a lot of these go straight to the cutting floor. Aegis Turtle, Campus Guide, Sanguine Syphoner, Gutless Plunderer, Scytheclaw Raptor, Stromkirk Bloodthief, Hoverstone Pilgrim, Misleading Motes, Pilfer, Navigation Orb, Prophetic Prism, Tithing Blade  ^Flip, and Clawing Torment are all on this list.

You also seem to have a weird sacrifice subtheme with Ravenous Amulet, Vampire Gourmand, Dreg Recycler, Ayara, First of Locthwain, Vein Ripper, and Liliana, Dreadhorde General. The problem with this is that you just don't have good token generators or sacrifice fodder to support this outside of Liliana, not to mention its complete disconnect from the Omnath theme. I'd cut them all except for Liliana and Vein ripper since those are just good cards by themselves.

For other miscellaneous cuts: Rest in Peace is probably unnecessary for the power level you're looking to play at, most of the time it's going to sit dead in your hand. You don't really have enough enter the battlefield effects for Blur to pull its weight. And you don't really seem to be putting out creature numbers necessary for Campaign of Vengeance to be worth the 5 mana. Invasion of Ravnica  ^Flip is a decent card but the flip cares about 2 color pairs which seems out of place in this deck.

And are you sure you want to keep the infinite combo? Your deck is very low power, while that wincon is something more akin to something higher up. People are going to see you pull off the infinite out of nowhere and then have the perception of your deck based off of that when it'll probably only do it once every dozen or so games. I heavily suggest cutting Marauding Blight-Priest to avoid this.

For what you should add:

Pick and choose from the and cycles, those are pretty consistent 3 color spells that trigger Omnath.

Other suggestions: Villainous Wealth lets you turn all that mana into free spells of your opponents deck. A wincon in of itself.

Rienne, Angel of Rebirth if you put in more multicolored legends then this is a godsend, letting you play them over and over.

Maelstrom Nexus triggers Omnath and is just a really good card for casting big things like you want to.

Kodama's Reach is a second cultivate, which you definitely want.

Mirror Room / Fractured Realm copies a creature or doubles the triggers of all your stuff, including your commander.

Conflux tutors you three cards which is just great and with all the mana you should have you can have a nasty turn with this.

Annie Joins Up is removal and doubles your commander trigger. Also triggers Omnath's draw.

Wargate lets you tutor out whatever Permanent you need directly onto the battlefield, and is a good X spell for all your mana. Also see Chord of Calling or Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer for creatures specifically.

Yurlok of Scorch Thrash is great for adding a ton of mana over several turns. Also triggers Omnath

Sphinx's Revelation to turn that mana into a ton of lifegain and card draw.

Victory Chimes nets you 4 mana a turn with Omnath.

Koma, World-Eater is just a big guy that creates a bunch of tokens and is hard to get rid of. Also triggers Omnath.

Faeburrow Elder is another bloom tender that's also a 5/5 for 3 if you have a decent board.

Aragorn, the Uniter loves you casting multicolored spells because he'll trigger multiple times for each.

Zacama, Primal Calamity can be devastating with the amount of mana you can store. You can cripple your opponents with a string of her abilities.

Muldrotha, the Gravetide is great for recursion to spend all that mana. You'll basically never run out of things to play.

From your Maybeboard: Kroxa and Kunoros should be fun, and Polukranos Reborn  ^Flip is just a decent creature that also triggers Omnath. Rebuild the City is decent mega ramp that also creates bodies. If you add enough 3 color stuff Meeting of the Five would be great for a massive turn (I would also suggest Threefold Signal if you hit that level). Everything else I don't think is worth adding, you seem to have ambitions for Battle synergy but most of those don't trigger Omnath, I think that would be better saved for another deck.

Tl;Dr: Add more stuff that triggers Omnath and cut out the bulk. Add more ramp and think long and hard about if you do really want that infinite in a deck that cannot match it's power level and the hate it will bring on you.

legendofa on MASSIVE EDH RC ban list …

7 months ago

Mortlocke I saw your other thread and had a couple of questions. I'm casual enough that I don't own or regularly see any of the cards that got banned, so I might be missing something, but how do these bans encourage or force a flat, interaction-less battlecruiser play style? There's still plenty of room for all the same interaction; people just can't slam down Zacama, Primal Calamity on turn 2 or whatever. Fierce Guardianship, Toxic Deluge, Swords to Plowshares, Chaos Warp, all the key interaction cards are still live.

And the ban article did make it clear that Sol Ring in particular isn't going anywhere, so I would say the ending point is right about here, at the 8-mana-on-turn-1 point. Is Jeweled Lotus or Mana Crypt really an essential part of every deck above a certain level, to the point where a deck doesn't work without it?

I completely get the frustration of losing a huge investment (been there myself), and the format will definitely be slower. But how much will the format actually change?

Mortlocke on Advertise your COMMANDER deck!

8 months ago

NeverCloud,

+1 from me, and I left a comment on your deck page. I look forward to what you think of my suggestions! As for everyone else, I have a deck i'm trying to make work and am unsure as to if i'm missing something. It's my love letter to all things Dinosaur with my favorite dino at the helm - Zacama, Primal Calamity. I present to all:

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The Predator of Predators

Commander / EDH Mortlocke

SCORE: 373 | 113 COMMENTS | 44534 VIEWS | IN 147 FOLDERS

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DemonDragonJ on How Can I Put Ziatora, …

1 year ago

Caerwyn, that makes sense, so I am very glad that I asked you, for your advice, before purchased a copy of that card; and I agree that the artwork is nice, as well.

Gidgetimer, most of the other players with whom I play seem to avoid very expensive cards, but those players who do choose to sue expensive cards definitely know how to use them effectively; one player had an EDH deck with Zacama, Primal Calamity as the general, and, once he summoned Zacama, he dominated that game, so he clearly knew what he was doing, when he built that deck.

plakjekaas on question about dino commander

1 year ago

If it's a dedicated dinosaur deck, Gishath, Sun's Avatar is probably the better choice.

Yes, Zacama, Primal Calamity is bigger, but apart from untapping your lands to cast more dinosaurs, it doesn't actually do much for your dino plan. Building that commander, it's usually better to lean into the "untap your lands"-aspect, using cards like Mana Reflection to actually make more mana by untapping than you spent casting Zacama.

Gishath is straightforward, swingy and very fun. Not complicated to build, you mostly want lots of dinosaurs and ways for Gishath to actually deal combat damage (by making it unblockable, for example) and the deck will snowball out of control pretty fast.

Good luck brewing!

wallisface on Why is Squad a Cast …

1 year ago

DemonDragonJ to reply:

• I used Carnage Tyrant as a example of when a card is too hard to interact with and turns the game into a "who ramps first" format. If you had seen this in Standard at the time, it was a menace. To my knowledge Zacama, Primal Calamity never made any dent in Standard. And, while Zacama, Primal Calamity might be strong in commander, it is a bad example for this conversation because it both dies to countermagic and to most other forms of board-interaction - so doesn't apply to what we're actually discussing here - which is that interaction needs to remain relevant/powerful to maintain game balance.

• Your comment on "I feel that no singular card should ever be so powerful as to win a game on its own" - firstly, games of magic have to end, and this card has a ton of ways to get disrupted, so is by no means a silver-bullet. Secondly, the rules changes you're advocating above would certainly turn a bunch of Squad cards into "singular cards that win games on their own". So I think you need to pick a side of the fence here.

wallisface on Why is Squad a Cast …

1 year ago

DemonDragonJ firstly it should be noted that some cards provide exceptions to the rules -but that doesn’t mean that they’re setting a precedence. Secondly, Zacama, Primal Calamity is not a very good example for this, as you still lose all your mana to the opponent using a Counterspell. A better example would be Carnage Tyrant, which at the time of printing caused all-manor of havoc to standard when it was printed - and made numerous archetypes unplayable… it was an issue design-wise (there’s a reason we haven’t seen anything printed this egregious since), and not something that Wotc would want to print en-masse (they’d especially want to avoid stapling such a game warping effect to an ability)

legendofa on Why is Squad a Cast …

1 year ago

DemonDragonJ As a mythic rare legendary creature that costs nine mana across three colors, Zacama, Primal Calamity is allowed a certain amount of freedom that a common or uncommon four-drop mono-color creature won't have. In this case, Zacama's restriction is there to avoid getting ridiculous amounts of land utility from reanimator, Sneak Attack, and other ways to bypass big mana costs. If you don't get Zacama in a "fair" way, you don't get the full benefit. Zacama can still be countered or discarded, and has no inherent self-protection, so it can still end up being a net zero mana investment, or worse.

To step in a little bit for Caerwyn, the intent is to invest that {6}{R}{G}{W} into a card that finishes the game that turn or the next turn. Zacama can be used as a power ramp card, but I'm pretty sure the design intention is to use it as an end game card. The land untapping effect is used here to give you a better chance of activating it's abilities, with a side benefit of protecting you from total mana loss for the turn.