Commander Collection: Raptor Attack

Commander / EDH Bracket 3 Dinosaurs RGW (Naya) Stompy

Jurrane

Creature (32)

• 1x Bellowing Tanglewurm
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Bonehoard Dracosaur
• 1x Carnage Tyrant
• 1x Curious Altisaur
• 1x Earthshaker Dreadmaw
• 1x Etali, Primal Storm
• 1x Ghalta and Mavren
• 1x Ghalta, Primal Hunger
• 1x Giant Cindermaw
• 1x Gishath, Sun's Avatar
• 1x Gyre Sage
• 1x Hulking Raptor
• 1x Hunting Velociraptor
• 1x Kogla and Yidaro
• 1x Majestic Heliopterus
• 1x Otepec Huntmaster
• 1x Polyraptor
• 1x Quartzwood Crasher
• 1x Rampaging Ferocidon
• 1x Regal Imperiosaur
• 1x Regisaur Alpha
• 1x Roaming Throne P
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Scion of Calamity
• 1x Sunfrill Imitator
• 1x Temple Altisaur
• 1x Thrashing Brontodon
• 1x Tranquil Frillback
• 1x Trumpeting Carnosaur
• 1x Wakening Sun's Avatar
• 1x Zetalpa, Primal Dawn

Artifact (5)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Doors of Durin
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x The Great Henge
• 1x Urza's Incubator

Land (35)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Battlefield Forge
• 1x Boseiju, Who Endures P
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 4x Forest
• 1x Grove of the Burnwillows
• 1x Horizon Canopy
• 1x Inspiring Vantage
• 1x Karplusan Forest
• 1x Minas Tirith
• 3x Mountain
• 3x Plains
• 1x Rockfall Vale
• 1x Rootbound Crag
• 1x Rugged Prairie
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Spectator Seating
• 1x Spire Garden
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Sunbaked Canyon
• 1x Sunpetal Grove
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Three Tree City P
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Yavimaya Hollow P

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Rampant Growth
• 1x Three Visits
• 1x Thunderherd Migration

Commander (1)

Instant (13)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Boros Charm
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Dawn's Truce
• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Flawless Maneuver
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Gruul Charm
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Naya Charm
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Teferi's ProtectionGC

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Aura ShardsGC
• 1x Descendants' Path
• 1x Elemental Bond
• 1x Folk Hero
• 1x Garruk's Uprising
• 1x Lurking Predators
• 1x Smothering TitheGC

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{W}{R}{G} Introduction: Clever Girl {W}{R}{G}

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Who doesn't like smashing stuff up with big dinosaurs? At the time of writing this, it seems quite a lot of people do. Pantlaza, Sun-Favored and Gishath, Sun's Avatar are habitually amongst the most popular Commanders on EDHrec, accounting for over 31,000 decks between them. The recent Ixalan sets have established Dinosaurs as a tribe to be reckoned with and they've received support in other newer sets too.

In many ways, Dinosaurs are the perfect Timmy tribe: they’re big, powerful and have game-breaking effects, and are surprisingly resilient when paired with the excellent defensive measures that white and green offer. In this EDH Naya Dinosaurs primer, I’ll explain how I built this list and talk a bit about the games it’s had so far.

The Dinosaurs Commander Dilemma

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Build Naya Dinosaurs and you're faced with a difficult choice for the Commander: Gishath, Sun's Avatar or Pantlaza, Sun-Favored. Both are powerful options and each brings advantages to the table. Gishath is the more explosive, higher mana value option, but takes a while to come online and relies on combat to be effective. Pantlaza is less expensive and offers more as an incremental value engine, but lacks the raw power of Gishath. Both are useful to help us ramp and neither is a bad choice.

For this deck, I’ve tried them both. I started with Gishath and was impressed with how easy it was to create a strong board position by connecting in combat. But I switched to Pantlaza when she was released and really liked her as a Commander that can played in the earlier turns and that’s also able to spiral out of control if left unchecked. For now, Pantlaza is my preference but Gishath stays in the 99 because of its explosive potential.

It’s worth taking a look at Pantlaza’s rules text to see what makes her so good. Here’s what it says:

”Whenever Pantlaza, Sun-Favored or another Dinosaur enters the battlefield under your control, you may discover X, where X is that creature’s toughness. Do this only once per turn.”

We’re also reminded what the Discover ability means:

”Exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card with that mana value or less. Cast it without paying its mana cost or put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom in a random order.”

A few things stand out here. First, it’s a very similar ability to Cascade but with the advantage of not having to cast the card immediately. This is very useful for cards we probably won’t want to cast straight away like, say, Teferi's Protection. We get the choice of whether to use it or keep it.

Second, the card we end up casting with this ability can be any card, as long as it meets the mana value requirement. So it can be another creature, a ramp spell or a removal card etc. This gives us a lot of flexibility and allows us to develop our board state (or target our opponents’) for free. That’s a pretty powerful thing to do.

Finally, although it has the limitation of triggering only once a turn, it has the potential to happen every turn Pantlaza or another Dinosaur comes into play. Again, that can be very powerful if we have triggers on opponents’ turns like Lurking Predators or when we’re making Dinosaur tokens at instant speed. I played a game recently when I had no Dinosaurs at all in my opening hand but got to play a T3 Pantlaza and absolutely dominated the pod, flooding the board in the turns that followed.

It’s this high ceiling that gives Pantlaza the edge for me. While we have to rely on Gishath connecting in combat for her ability to trigger (and will occasionally whiff on targets), the reliability and flexibility of Pantlaza’s triggers make her the better Commander choice. But it’s close and Gishath is an amazing card too.

Deck Strategy

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This is an aggressive deck that wants to attack and win through combat. Our objective is to ramp to build up our resources as quickly as possible while building a board state of threats that can keep our opponents on the back foot. We have enough versatile removal to get rid of problematic cards that stop us attacking or block our attackers, and we’ve got access to some useful defensive cards to protect our creatures when they’re targeted by opponents (for more details, see the "Other Utility Cards" section below).

Broadly speaking, there are two ways we can ramp with this deck. First there's the "fair" way with spells like Rampant Growth etc; mana dorks such as Birds of Paradise and Gyre Sage; or other static or triggered effects like Smothering TitheGC, Hulking Raptor or Wayward Swordtooth. Or there's the (much more fun) "unfair" way where we can cheat huge creatures into play for free using Pantlaza, Sun-Favored, Doors of Durin, Descendants' Path, Lurking Predators, Gishath, Sun's Avatar etc. It's this second option that allows us to scale rapidly and explosively, and potentially take over the game in very short order, sometimes before our opponents have time to properly develop.

In the games I’ve had so far, this has tended to the basic pattern of play. Ramp into big scary creatures, attack aggressively and build an unassailable board state, while using removal on enemy threats and protecting our army from spot removal or boardwipes with our various protection spells. However there’s a lot more nuance to it and we’ll find ourselves adjusting to a variety of different situations.

Power Level

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I categorise decks in my collection according to four tiers of power, from 1 (most powerful) to 4 (least powerful):

Tier 1: Higher powered decks with fast mana, free spells, and infinite combos or instant wins that are searchable with tutors.
Tier 2: Well tuned decks which may have infinite combos or instant wins that are searchable with tutors, but not many fast mana sources and/or free spells.
Tier 3: Reasonably well tuned casual decks that are capable of powerful plays. May occasionally have infinite combos or instant wins but don't generally use tutors to find them.
Tier 4: Lower powered or linear decks, weak enough to play against other casual decks.

I would classify this as one of my Tier 3 decks. It's well tuned and features optimised card selections in most categories, other than fast mana (which I might add soon eg. Jeweled Lotus, Mana Crypt Mana VaultGC etc). But it doesn't run any gamebreaking combos and has the fairly linear win condition of attacking with big creatures. It's suitable for most casual tables and I would define it as medium to slightly higher power in more casual game settings. At the end of the day it's just a battlecruiser Timmy deck.

Budget

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The budget for three colour decks can be fairly high if you're looking to build a mana base around the relevant fetches and shocks. Right now this deck costs an average of about $550+ on Card Kingdom, which takes into account the relatively expensive land selection, and premium cards such as Teferi's Protection, Cavern of Souls, Polyraptor and Hunting Velociraptor. But most of the other Dinosaurs in this list are pretty cheap and Gishath, Sun's Avatar has come down a lot in price recently. So, if you're looking to build Dinosaurs on a lower budget, it's absolutely viable to do so and you could do a lot worse than start with the Veloci-Ramp-Tor precon that Pantlaza, Sun-Favored is part of (you can find the decklist here: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5984574#paper ). Or you can find some more ideas on EDHrec here: https://edhrec.com/commanders/pantlaza-sun-favored/dinosaur/budget

Your Jurassic Park Spotters' Guide

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Our deck is packed full of dangerous dinosaur denizens. Here's a full list and why they've been chosen.

• Bonehoard Dracosaur: Half dragon, half dinosaur but all business. A flying first-striking 5/5 is already good but his pseudo-card draw/token generation ability is the icing on the cake. New staple for Dinosaurs lists.
• Carnage Tyrant: Put on this earth to make blue mages weep. Packs a serious punch and difficult to remove short of sacrifice effects or boardwipes.
• Curious Altisaur: A 5 toughness body and reach will discourage quite a few attackers. Its card draw ability will trigger frequently in this deck.
• Earthshaker Dreadmaw: Quite expensive to cast but another good source of card draw that can refill our hand if we've spewed out a bunch of dinos.
• Etali, Primal Storm: Casual commander staple. Tends to get removed pretty quickly but lots of fun if it sticks. Invariably strikes fear into opponents.
• Ghalta and Mavren: Monster stats for just 7 mana. We'll probably be choosing the first mode more often than not, as scales in power with our other dinosaurs. The second mode is an option if we want to go wide.
• Ghalta, Primal Hunger: OG Ghalta still makes the cut. Insane casting cost but we won't be paying that. Either it'll be reduced by our other high power creatures or we might get to cheat him into play if we're lucky.
• Giant Cindermaw: We want lower mana value options to flatten out our mana curve. This one has the added bonus of preventing lifegain.
• Gishath, Sun's Avatar: Demoted from commander of this deck but still worth including in the 99. Can be single-handedly responsible for some truly explosive turns. Left alone she'll get out of control so expect her to draw removal like a magnet.
• Hulking Raptor: Another curve-flattener and a nice source of ramp to help power out other dinos.
• Kogla and Yidaro: Versatile (albeit slightly expensive) utility card. Its channel ability acts like a higher-costed Boseiju, Who Endures but with the advantage of shuffling back into our library. If we play it as a creature, we have the option of creature removal or haste and trample. Very good either way. And the art is badass.
• Majestic Heliopterus: Not many of our Dinosaurs have flying so this is a great way of giving them evasion. I don't think it's used in more tuned lists but I quite like it.
• Polyraptor: I wish Wizards printed tokens for this one. Another dinosaur that can get out of control if left alone. Pretty much the only enrage dino I'm still including in this build.
• Quartzwood Crasher: Can be a bit win-more if we're already hitting for lots of damage but that's Dinosaurs for you. Is capable of creating some monster tokens.
• Rampaging Ferocidon: Similar to Giant Cindermaw. Blanking lifegain can be pretty useful. Its triggered ability punishes go-wide strategies. At the risk of stating the obvious, we run lots of creatures too so be careful but we'll usually win the damage race
• Regisaur Alpha: Gives our other dinosaurs haste so worth including purely on that basis. 7 power for {3}{R}{G} seems about right for this deck.
• Scion of Calamity: I wish there were more dinosaurs with myriad. I also wish this one had trample but you can't have everything. Still a great card for its artifact and enchantment removal.
• Sunfrill Imitator: Not advisable to copy any of our legendary Dinosaurs but it's still got some decent targets. Nice cheap card that we can play early doors.
• Temple Altisaur: Makes our other dinosaurs virtually impervious to damage. Blanks Blasphemous Act and other damage dealing boardwipes.
• Thrashing Brontodon: Artifact or enchantment removal on a decent-sized body. Still a staple for casual Dinosaurs decks.
• Regal Imperiosaur: {1}{G}{G} buys you a lot these days. Basically a much more efficient Thundering Spineback which this card has replaced. There's only one point of toughness in it and it's rare we have any spare mana to create tokens.
• Tranquil Frillback: Nice utility creature with a range of different multikicker costs. The artifact/enchantment removal and graveyard exile modes are the most relevant.
• Trumpeting Carnosaur: Another channel-type effect that offers a bit of utility. Its discover 5 ability means it'll usually be accompanied by something good.
• Wakening Sun's Avatar: Top end of the mana curve but it has won me games. Often a one-sized boardwipe.
• Zetalpa, Primal Dawn: Keyword soup makes for a great evasive game-ending curve topper. Pretty difficult to get rid of. I once found that out the hard way as an opponent stole it from me and beat me to death with it.

Dino-Support

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While the majority of our creatures are Dinosaurs, we run a bunch of other creatures (and noncreature cards) that support our tribal strategy. Here are some highlights.

• Bellowing Tanglewurm: Not a Dinosaur, even if it looks a bit like one, but its ability to give other green creatures intimidate is a great way of forcing through damage. Most of our nastiest Dinos have green in their colour identity so this can be an excellent game closer.
• Birds of Paradise: A staple ramp source for a three colour base green deck. Please don't bolt it.
• Descendants' Path: One of several ways we can cheat creatures onto the board. Just like Doors of Durin, it triggers Pantlaza's discover ability as she only checks for ETB and not cast. Perfect for this deck.
• Doors of Durin: Absolutely insane in this deck. Cheats our big creatures into play for free and triggers Pantlaza's discover ability when Dinosaurs ETB. Allows us to easily overwhelm opponents if not removed.
• Gyre Sage: I run this in most of my green creature decks. It's not uncommon for it to tap for large amounts of green mana if it's cast early.
• Lurking Predators: Yet another way of cheating out our fatties for free. Gets out of control quickly if unanswered. I've had this win games pretty much on its own.
• Otepec Huntmaster: Mainly included for its cost reduction ability for Dinosaurs but its activated haste ability is often relevant too.
• Roaming Throne: Might as well be a Dinosaur as we get to choose its creature type when it ETBs. Its real value is doubling the triggered abilities of all our Dinosaurs. Ward {2} is the icing on the cake.
• Sakura-Tribe Elder: Good old Steve. Not much to say really other than he's basically another ramp spell.
• Smothering TitheGC: I think this has a decent shout at being the best white card in the format. We're not a control deck but it still works here as a ramp source. Staple in pretty much any white deck.
• Urza's Incubator: A pretty hefty cost reduction effect for our Dinosaurs. Not particularly exciting but helps a lot with our higher costed fatties.

Other Utility Cards

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Our dinosaur stampede is supported by a series of utility cards that protect our creatures, refill our hand. remove enemy permanents or ramp up our resources. They are as follows:

Protection
We're a creature deck so we need to have ways of protecting our team when they're inevitably targeted by spot or mass removal. Boros Charm, Dawn's Truce, Flawless Maneuver and Teferi's Protection are our protective spells of choice. They're primarily chosen for their ability to to defend against boardwipes.

Card Draw
Bonehoard Dracosaur, Curious Altisaur and Earthshaker Dreadmaw are handy Dinosaurs to help draw us more cards. They're supported by Folk Hero, Elemental Bond, Garruk's Uprising and The Great Henge to keep us in gas and refill our hand while we're pumping out massive threats. The Great Henge also doubles as a useful ramp source.

Removal
Whenever I add removal spells to a deck, I look for them to be as versatile as possible by being able to deal with any types of permanent. Beast Within, Chaos Warp and Generous Gift are therefore auto-includes. Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares need no introduction as the most efficient ways in the game to remove creatures. Finally our deck is stacked full of creatures so Aura Shards turns every ETB into a Disenchant that takes care of artifacts and enchantments.

Ramp
We want to come out of the blocks as quickly as possible so we can overwhelm our opponents. Plus many of our biggest creatures are highly costed so we need as many resources as we can get. As well as the ramp creatures and cost reducers listed in the previous section, we have a ramp package comprising of seven other cards: Cultivate, Farseek, Kodama's Reach, Nature's Lore, Rampant Growth, Three Visits and Thunderherd Migration. Personally I would think about mulliganing any opening hand that doesn't have at least one ramp source.

Upcoming Changes

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Thank you for reading this primer :) I hope you've found it useful and it's given you inspiration for your own Dinosaur lists. Right now I'm not looking to make any significant changes to the deck unless some amazingly impactful new Dinosaurs (or support cards) are added to the EDH card pool. Most of my choices are locked and the deck has been pretty successful, currently enjoying a 50%+ win rate in casual pods. I hope it works well for you too!

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All My EDH Decks

{W} Giada, Font of Hope {W}
S(i)erra Sidewinder: Mono-White Angel Tribal

{U} Talrand, Sky Summoner {U}
Blue Streak: Mono-Blue Spellslinger

{U} Orvar, the All-Form {U}
Clone Zone: Mono-Blue Shapeshifters Combo

{B} Sidisi, Undead Vizier {B}
Swamp Thing: Mono-Black Goodstuff

{B} Syr Konrad, the Grim {B}
Black Hole: Mono-Black Sacrifice/Aristocrats

{R} Torbran, Thane of Red Fell {R}
Red Force: Mono-Red Group Slug

{R} Rionya, Fire Dancer {R}
Firebird: Mono-Red Storm/Tokens

{G} Titania, Protector of Argoth {G}
Timber Terror: Mono-Green Stax

{W}{U} Grand Arbiter Augustin IVGC {W}{U}
Control Freak: Azorius Control

{W}{U} Elminster {W}{U}
Crystal Wing: Azorius Skies & Scry

{U}{B} Oona, Queen of the Fae {U}{B}
Dreamcatcher: Dimir Faeries Tribal

{U}{B} Narfi, Betrayer King {U}{B}
Ice Breaker: Dimir Snow/Zombies

{B}{R} Rakdos, Lord of Riots {B}{R}
Steamin’ Demon: Rakdos Life Loss

{B}{R} Juri, Master of the Revue {B}{R}
Pandemonium: Rakdos Sacrifice

{R}{G} Hallar, the Firefletcher {R}{G}
Trailblazer: Gruul Kicker

{R}{G} Wort, the Raidmother {R}{G}
Barnstormer: Gruul Conspire

{W}{G} Sigarda, Font of Blessings {W}{G}
Stampida: Selesnya Humans Tribal

{W}{G} Captain Sisay {W}{G}
Legendia: Selesnya Legendary

{W}{G} Sythis, Harvest's Hand {W}{G}
Diamondback: Selesnya Enchantress

{W}{B} Daxos the Returned {W}{B}
Curse of Novgorod: Orzhov Constellation

{W}{B} Kambal, Consul of Allocation {W}{B}
Oblivion: Orzhov Lifegain & Lifedrain

{U}{R} Firkraag, Cunning Instigator {U}{R}
Dragon’s Fury: Izzet Dragons/Goad

{B}{G} Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons {B}{G}
Scorpion Express: Golgari Deathtouch

{B}{G} Nath of the Gilt-Leaf {B}{G}
Outlaw Run: Golgari Elves/Discard

{W}{R} Bruenor Battlehammer {W}{R}
Steel Force: Boros Equipment

{W}{R} General Ferrous Rokiric {W}{R}
Gatekeeper: Boros Multicoloured

{U}{G} Momir Vig, Simic Visionary {U}{G}
Wicked Twister: Simic +1/+1 Counters

{U}{G} Ezuri, Stalker of Spheres {U}{G}
Toxic Garden: Simic Infect

{W}{U}{B} Tivit, Seller of Secrets {W}{U}{B}
Steel Vengeance: Esper Artifacts

{W}{U}{B} Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign {W}{U}{B}
Riddler’s Revenge: Esper Topdeck

{U}{B}{R} Marchesa, the Black Rose {U}{B}{R}
Revenge of the Mummy: Grixis Dethrone/Combo

{B}{R}{G} Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire {B}{R}{G}
Dragon Wagon: Jund Dragons Tribal

{W}{R}{G} Pantlaza, Sun-Favored {W}{R}{G}
Raptor Attack: Naya Dinosaurs Tribal

{W}{U}{G} Galadriel, Light of Valinor {W}{U}{G}
Vapour Trail: Bant Flicker

{W}{B}{G} Karador, Ghost Chieftain {W}{B}{G}
Hair Raiser: Abzan Reanimator

{W}{B}{G} Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant {W}{B}{G}
A Long-Expected Party: Abzan Lifegain/Combo

{W}{U}{R} Kykar, Wind's Fury {W}{U}{R}
Storm Runner: Jeskai Tokens

{W}{U}{R} Hinata, Dawn-Crowned {W}{U}{R}
Phantom’s Revenge: Jeskai Control

{U}{B}{G} Yarok, the Desecrated {U}{B}{G}
Boomerang: Sultai ETB Triggers

{W}{B}{R} Kaalia of the Vast {W}{B}{R}
Abyssus: Mardu Angels & Demons

{U}{R}{G} Omnath, Locus of the Roil {U}{R}{G}
Boulder Dash: Temur Landfall

Date added	5 years
Last updated	2 weeks
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	9 - 0 Mythic Rares 55 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.85
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Copy Clone, Dinosaur 3/1 R, Dinosaur 3/3 G, Dinosaur Beast */* G, Dinosaur X/X G, Elephant 3/3 G, Treasure, Vampire 1/1 W
Folders	Decks i like, Tried, Decks, commander, Decks to look at