Ever since I started up MTGO several months ago I had been wanting to try out dinosaurs. Not sure if it the artwork or the love of Jurassic Park but this is my attempt to play a deck that will be fun and hopefully somewhat competitive. If you have some constructive criticism, I am all ears as I am always looking to improve both the decks and my own deck-building ability.

One of the difficulties I found when building a dino deck is their high CMC. To overcome this I have a number of creatures to lower the CMC such as Goblin Anarchomancer, Kinjalli's Caller, and Marauding Raptor and a number of ramping dinosaurs like Ranging Raptors and Topiary Stomper. I am running Goblin Anarchomancer as its runs a bit wider than Otepec Huntmaster although both of them have trouble when Marauding Raptor is on the field. I considered dropping Goblin Anarchomancer entirely and just run additional copies of Marauding Raptor but getting two copies of Marauding Raptor on the field at once is not exactly ideal as it would limit what I could play. In total, I have 8 creatures in the deck that lower the CMC of the dinosaurs and 5 ramping dinosaurs giving me goods odds of being able to hit some of the big guns much quicker than usual.

In terms of triggering the enrage ability, cards like Cinderclasm hit all the creatures going for a mass enrage while others are more targeted like Reckless Rage, Rile, and Savage Stomp. Running Marauding Raptor and Forerunner of the Empire provide some additional enrage triggers as well. In total, I have 12 ways to trigger enrage in addition to combat damage giving me good odds of being able to hit that consistently.

As a good portion of this deck relies heavily on having certain creatures on the field to lower the cost of the big guns or the cards needed to enrage the dinos, I added in a considerable amount of potential extra draws to "search" the deck for what I want/need. Ripjaw Raptor provides draws when dealt damage via enrage, Runic Armasaur provides draws if the opponent relies on activated abilities of lands/creatures. Rile provides a cheap draw while also letting me target an enraged ability, and lastly The Great Henge is a card that meshes well with this deck given the big creatures it fields and also give me a draw ability when a creature is cast. That gives me 9 cards total with draw potential again giving me good odds that I will be able to play one at least and keep the fun going.

Radiant_Draconis - I did a little bit of playtesting of this last night and was a little disappointed with Polyraptor. It works to well! I had out a Marauding Raptor and played Polyraptor and it creates an infinite cycle of creating tokens, lol. I mean, I did want to use that combo as a wincon but not because the opponent gets annoyed that I have just been making tokens for the last 5 mins! Pretty sure I am going to have to remove Polyraptor for something else which is sad.

Balaam__ - I appreciate the upvote!

kamarupa - Thanks for the upvote! Still a work in progress but isn't every deck?

Hello! i have attested these chickens for the last 2 years and got some cool results in my country's online championships. this is my latest list, hope it helps! (yes, I wrote that in google translator). https://www.moxfield.com/decks/0_7d66gIMkmCSm-yIJqpxg

heinzu - Thanks for the heads up, I will check it out! Any suggestions for how the deck currently looks given your dinosaur expertise?

Niko9 - Thanks for the upvote!

Nice dino deck! Honestly, part of me kind of hopes that they don't print newer and better dinosaurs in the future just because of how cool the ones we've got are. Ranging Raptors and Ripjaw Raptor are so good, and I really like your addition of Reckless Rage That's one I always wanted to try and it just never quite made the list, but I bet it can be nuts good.

One that I play in dinos is Ulvenwald Tracker to get another one drop and to have reusable fight effects. I know that it can be hard to find room for non dinos in there, but it's a very good one if you can find space for it.

But yep, I have a sans-red version if you ever want to check it out Dino Stomps To Value and it uses Tamiyo, Field Researcher to great effect and also Enter the Unknown which is one of my favorite ramp/scryish/pump cards. And Archangel Avacyn  ^Flip as both a flash indestructable to go with enrage, but also when she flips and hits all creatures for enrage effects. Plus a big flash flier is just good : )

But it's just different. Your deck is definitely more synergistic in dinos, and I really like seeing the different takes on my all time favorite magic creatures. They are surprisingly versatile for big bitey lizards : ) Awesome list!

Also, amazing deck name : )

I am glad at least one person saw that quote and put it into context with a dinosaur theme deck! If I had more of a pure raptor presence in the deck, I was going to go with Shoot Her! Shoot Her! but I thought that would be wasted on most people, lol.

Ha, that would have also been great : ) It will always be the best dinosaur first and people second, movie ever.