How Good is Atalan Jackal?
Deck Help forum
Posted on Jan. 5, 2025, 7:44 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
I am considering putting Atalan Jackal in several of my decks, including my red/green 60- card deck, but I am not certain which cards I should remove to make room, for it; I am considering removing Sunder Shaman, but that creature is a very nice one, so I am not certain what changes to make.
Also, I very much would like to put Atalan Jackal into several of my EDH decks, as well, but, again, I am not certain what card to remove; perhaps I could replace Commander's Sphere with the jackal, since the jackal performs a very similar function, and several of my decks have a strong emphasis on creatures?
What does everyone else say, about this? How good is Atalan Jackal, and should I put it into my decks? I certainly would appreciate any feedback that anyone can offer.
Were it to have something like vigilance and pseudo evasion like menace, maybe.
You'll have to build up to it to make it good (add Removal, double strike, etc), and with the buildups necessary, you'd be better off just just doing other aggros strategies.
Even in non Commander legacy formats like Canadian Highlander, it's far too slow or gives such a poor advantage.
In general, I like Commander's Sphere simply for decks that can use the draw and the sacrifice. It even still makes sense in competitive Dargo, the Shipwrecker for that purpose.
January 6, 2025 6:32 a.m.
wallisface says... #4
In any 60 card format, 3-mana for super-situational/disruptable ramp is just too slow, clunky, and unreliable.
Card looks terrible for even the most casual of decks.
January 6, 2025 3:49 p.m.
As a general piece of feedback, you need to stop thinking about cards being generically good. From taking a look at few of your decks, Riku and Numot, and based on how you evaluate cards, you need to think more about synergy.
Most of the decks that play Atalan Jackal are either Haste tribal or creatures only (there's also the Warhammer commander but I imagine that's for flavor and/or it comes in the precon). Unless you're going for maximum synergies and/or a deckbuild restriction, Cultivate is just far superior. If this is already in most of your lists, there's still plenty of more efficient ramp.
January 6, 2025 6:37 p.m.
Kazierts I agree for the most part, but some cards are so good they can be played in pretty much any deck cough cough sheoldred
January 6, 2025 7:05 p.m.
Bookrook, I'm not saying that there aren't staples or they shouldn't be played. I guess I expressed myself incorrectly. What I meant is not every card with an upside is a staple. For a card to be good in every deck of that color (ir any color) it REALLY needs to be generic or very powerful.
January 6, 2025 7:15 p.m.
wallisface says... #8
I agree with everything Kazierts said. Even cards that are considered ”generically powerful” shouldn’t just get thrown haphazardly into every deck - for example, despite its power there’s still reasons to not run The One Ring.
It feels like we see a lot if posts here along the lines of ”I found this really dubious/niche card and I want to put it into every one of my decks for reasons”, and this is really the wrong way to go about constructing anything.
Each deck needs to be built with a specific mission statement in mind. Unless your decks have a massive amount of overlap (in which case, why not just conglomerate them into 1 deck?), there’s almost-zero reason for any individual niche/low-value card to feature in any more than one of those decks.
January 6, 2025 7:23 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #9
Kazierts, what is wrong with cards being "generically good?"
wallisface, I am not planning to put Atalan Jackal in everyone one of my EDH decks that contain the colors red and green, likely only my Ghired, Conclave Exile
deck, because that deck has a strong emphasis on creatures, including being able to copy them.
January 11, 2025 9:43 a.m.
wallisface says... #10
DemonDragonJ a card being generically-good doesn't mean that it fits with the plans and win-conditions of a deck. Just adding in a bunch of cards to a deck that are generically-good doesn't strengthen a deck, it often waters down its strategy and makes it harder to present a coherent path-to-victory.
In any case, this card isn't generically-good, it's generically-awful.
You started this thread stating you were planning on putting this card into "several of your decks", which was the point I was arguing against.
In any case, I don't see how a very slow and weak ramp card could possibly help an edh deck that is based around populating. Specifically, it's already been mentioned above that there are better ramp options you're not running, like Cultivate, and I don't even see how this card could be considered until those other stronger choices have already been included.
January 11, 2025 2:24 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #11
wallisface, Atalan Jackal is a creature version of Cultivate, and my Ghired deck focuses on creatures, and I also do not use "generically good" cards in every one of my decks; I ensure that each of my decks feels distinct from the others, but what about Wood Elves? What is your opinion of that card?
January 11, 2025 6:49 p.m.
wallisface says... #12
DemonDragonJ Atalan Jackal might loosely be a creature version of Cultivate, but its a terrible choice. It has to connect with combat damage to actually do anything, and with its terrible stats there's a big of it ever doing so. Your deck might focus on creatures but that doesn't mean every one of your cards has to be a creature - indeed if there's no inherent benefit from this card being a creature then there is no point in running it as such. Having a quick look at your deck, I see no reason why this shouldn't be Cultivate instead.
Wood Elves is probably marginally better than Atalan Jackal, but is still only even remotely useful if you have some way to abuse the etb trigger repeatedly and reliably, otherwise it's again just a much-worse Cultivate. Its also worth noting that while you may be able to blink/copy Wood Elves, that I would hope there are far better targets for such effects, making it an even less-useful card.
Ramping for ramps-sake doesn't really solve anything.
January 11, 2025 7:20 p.m.
Here's actually something I disagree with wallisface. I don't think Wood Elves is much worse than Cultivate nor is marginally better than Atalan Jackal.
If we're talking about raw ramp, then yes, Cultivate is better because it can also set up future ramp such as Explore and Growth Spiral, but Wood Elves can get nonbasic lands such as Indatha Triome. I'm not saying it's an auto-include if you have nonbasic forest, but it's something I'd consider.
About Atalan Jackal, just look at its EDHrec page. You'll see roughly 4 types of commanders that play it.
- Warhammer commanders - I imagine this is because it comes in the precons.
- Haste commanders - Ognis, the Dragon's Lash, Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes, Deathleaper, Terror Weapon and Samut, Vizier of Naktamun.
- Combat commanders - Anzrag, the Quake-Mole, Mr. Orfeo, the Boulder and General Marhault Elsdragon.
- Very creature focused decks - Animar, Soul of Elements, Nikya of the Old Ways and Ruric Thar, the Unbowed.
These aren't the only commanders that run this card, but the ones that play it the most. They don't run Atalan Jackal because it's good, but because it actually synergises with the overall strategy. It doesn't enable the strategy, it is part of the strategy.
January 11, 2025 8:19 p.m.
wallisface says... #14
Kazierts good catch on it being able to grab any kind of forest - I'd only skimmed the card so didn't see that point, and had just automatically assumed it to be a worse Sakura-Tribe Elder.
Coming from a Modern-format background, it's still really hard for me to see any 3-mana ramp card being anything other than garbage, but at least these elves can help with retrieving specific forests, which I can see being useful in some decks for a singleton format.
I still think you'd need a really good reason to run the card, and I do still think in most cases Cultivate will just be a more useful card, but I can see there being use cases for toolbox-land fetching with the elves.
January 11, 2025 8:38 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #15
wallisface, Kazierts, your points make sense, and, perhaps I can find a creature that is a better alternative than is Atalan Jackal, although I still think that it is a very interesting idea, and you also said that "ramping for the sake of ramping does not solve anything," but is that not what Cultivate does? Also, why has no one yet mentioned Explosive Vegetation? For one more mana over Cultivate, it can put two lands onto the battlefield, making it essentially a double version of Rampant Growth.
January 11, 2025 10:55 p.m.
wallisface says... #16
DemonDragonJ I hadn't mentioned Explosive Vegetation because I'm not a commander player, so not aware of any staple ramp cards. Personally however, I'd rather be doing something much more impactful for 4 mana than just getting lands (most 4 mana cards in Modern either win you the game or create massive board-pressure, and I feel like you'd be wanting similarly big-impact cards for edh at this mana-cost).
On my off-hand comment of "Ramping for ramps-sake doesn't really solve anything." - that comment wasn't pointed at any specific ramp card, but the concept/effect as a whole. There's not a lot of point including ramp cards in a deck if it's not working towards some kind of massive payoff. Any card that is ramping you is one-less impactful card in your hand, as well as one-less turn creating presence on the board. There is for-sure a lot of decks that need ramp in order to pull of some kind of ridiculous winning-combo (i.e. Amulet-Titan, Tron), but there's also a lot of cases where people add ramp into their deck to try and solve a mana-curve problem, or some other deckbuilding issue. There's a lot of times I see people here ramping as a bandaid-to-a-bigger-problem, when they realistically should be addressing their mana-curve. I have no idea if this is the case with your deck, but a good question to ask a deck is whether the ramp is allowing you to do something obnoxious, or if its actually a juxtaposition to the decks goals.
^ off course, that entire last paragraph is veering us wildly off-topic for this thread, so feel free to ignore.
January 12, 2025 1:07 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #17
Explosive Vegetation isn't a staple ramp card in commander. It is possible ramp in the lowest power of battlecruiser metas or a trap to inexperienced deck builders in any other meta. Even in commander you want your ramp predominately to be 2 or less mana with limited 3 mana ramp. Even then ramp at 3 should either: ramp multiple mana; be ramping you into something specific at 5 mana; or provide exceptional fixing.
This isn't to say that I have never run Explosive Veggies. I have and have also ran Skyshroud Claim. But most of the time there is no reason to run Veggies and the use case for Claim is decks with a mana dump in the command zone.
On the topic of Wood Elves; it may not be a worse Cultivate, but unless you are abusing the ETB or have a creature cast or ETB trigger you are also getting it IS just a worse Nature's Lore/Three Visits
January 12, 2025 2:54 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #18
Gidgetimer, I have a deck that has a strong emphasis on creatures, so I feel that Wood Elves is an ideal choice, for such a deck.
January 12, 2025 3:38 p.m.
wallisface says... #19
DemonDragonJ a deck having an emphasis on creatures doesn’t correlate to every card-being-a-creature being a positive thing.
What do you actually gain from Wood Elves being a creature card, that makes it worth costing such a high mana cost?
January 12, 2025 3:46 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #20
wallisface, the fact that Wood Elves are a creature allows me to "blink" or copy them, and they have been very useful in my Chulane, Teller of Tales EDH deck, so I imagine that they would also be useful in my Ghired, Conclave Exile EDH deck, as well.
January 12, 2025 7:42 p.m.
wallisface says... #21
DemonDragonJ I just find it really hard to believe that the card is even remotely-feasible as a blink-target… surely there are just hundreds of better options for blinking… I can’t imagine wasting resources blinking this card leads to anywhere good?
January 12, 2025 8:01 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #22
wallisface, my Chulane deck can amass great resources very quickly, given that many of the creatures that it contains can provide various forms of card advantage.
January 12, 2025 8:18 p.m.
wallisface says... #23
DemonDragonJ that’s dodging the point - surely this card is nowhere-near the best use of your blink/copy effects
January 12, 2025 8:21 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #24
wallisface, I definitely have some excellent cards in that deck with abilities that trigger when they enter the battlefield, such as Reclamation Sage, Eternal Witness, Craterhoof Behemoth, Brutalizer Exarch, Coiling Oracle, Mulldrifter Mystic Snake, or Peregrine Drake; do you agree that those creatures are excellent cards for flickering?
January 12, 2025 8:26 p.m.
wallisface says... #25
DemonDragonJ they all mostly do useful things, so yes. This gives more weight to why Wood Elves is a bad choice for flickering, because you just have better targets. So there’s no (or, very little) reason to be running this card as a creature.
January 12, 2025 9:12 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #26
wallisface, what card or cards would you recommend for mana acceleration?
January 12, 2025 10:31 p.m.
wallisface says... #27
DemonDragonJ I feel like Cultivate has already been mentioned a ton of times here and is a better choice.
But in any case this is a question the internet already has a multitude of answers for - doing a 2 second google yields links like this and this and this.
January 12, 2025 10:43 p.m.
wallisface, once again I have to disagree with you. DemonDragonJ gave a good example of context where Wood Elves is actually pretty good. Gidgetimer actually was more on point when it comes to Commander ramp.
Chulane, Teller of Tales is a perfect example of a deck where Wood Elves is better than Cultivate. It's a deck that you basically want not just many creatures, but a critical mass of creatures. So, having ramp creatures actually provides more synergy than instant/sorcery ramp. You have to remember Wood Elves doesn't search only basic forest, it can also searh triomes, surveil lands and shock lands while having the sneaky benefit of not putting them tapped. Which means, if you cast with Chulane, Teller of Tales out, you can put a land from hand on the cast trigger, get a shock land paying the 2 life and have two mana available to make another play. However, as a sidenote, I think self-bounce is better than blink/flicker in Chulane, Teller of Tales as you can retrigger his ability.
I'm not exatlcy sure about it being good in Ghired, Conclave Exile since it seems to want creature tokens specifically, but maybe it works.
January 13, 2025 7:27 a.m. Edited.
wallisface says... #29
Kazierts my point with Wood Elves is that I can’t imagine ever blinking it in a deck filled with better blink targets. Its not that blinking it is an inherently bad thing to do, I personally just don’t see it ever happening when any other target you choose likely gets you more value (imo using a blink effect just for a land on turn 4 onwards feels really suboptimal).
I would agree Chulane, Teller of Tales makes Wood Elves look good. That card was never bought up and it wasn’t the commander being discussed. Using that commander would change the discussion entirely, so I don’t see this being a fair point.
Agree that I see no inherent synergy with Ghired, Conclave Exile. Presumably copy tokens are being made? - and if so, again i’d wager there’s better creatures to make tokens of
January 13, 2025 12:43 p.m.
wallisface says... #30
Oh, just reading above I do see Chulane was mentioned - my bad for missing that, all my comments have been in reference to Ghired
January 13, 2025 1:12 p.m.
wallisface says... #31
Specifically for OPs Ghired deck, which I had assumed this entire conversation was about, there are only 2 creatures that can make copies of creatures (Bramble Sovereign and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, both of which should have better targets), zero ways to blink creatures, and only 2 other cards I saw which care about creatures entering (Aura Shards and Warleader's Call). None of this justifies Wood Elves.
Even for OPs Chulane deck, where Wood Elves feels more at-home, there’s basically no synergy outside of the commander itself, Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines and two blink spells (for some reason Ephemerate isn’t even being played). While Wood Elves has actual value here, I can’t see it being more useful than a Birds of Paradise or any other mana-dork for that matter, which the deck is missing.
January 13, 2025 1:37 p.m.
wallisface says... #32
Sorry for the triple-post, just done some more digging specific to Chulane- I see from edhrec that Wood Elves isn’t suggested at all whereas every single mana dork is… it would make a LOT of sense to be including all of those before even thinking about Wood Elves
January 13, 2025 1:48 p.m.
wallisface, if you go to Chulane's page, you'll see Wood Elves as one of the top creatures being used for his decks, right below Dream Stalker and above Sakura-Tribe Elder. Also, you can include all the mana dorks you want + Wood Elves no problem.
January 13, 2025 6:15 p.m.
wallisface says... #34
Kazierts just spelling out my viewpoint in case its not clear:
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I have said that Wood Elves is a reasonable choice in a Chulane deck
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Saying that, I have also expressed heavy scepticism that its the best current addition to the OPs personal Chulane deck, seeing as they’re missing soo many more obvious/optimal choices for mana acceleration/ramp.
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Every other comment prior to the specific Chulane comments had been directed towards the OPs Ghired deck, which I maintain has no reason to run Wood Elves (or creature cards in general).
January 13, 2025 6:21 p.m.
I 100% agree with wallisface about the ghired deck, you could use literally any other mana dork. With the chalune deck, I personally wouldn’t use wood elves, but I wouldn’t blame anyone for it.
January 13, 2025 6:27 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #36
Bookrook, yes, I agree that wallisface made some very well-reasoned arguments, so I shall not be using Atalan Jackal in my Ghired, Conclave Exile deck.
wallisface, how can you say that my Ghired deck should not "run creature cards in general?" I can think of only a few other generals who have a stronger emphasis on creatures than him, with another example being Chulane, Teller of Tales, who is also the general of an EDH deck that I have made. Also, I agree that Ephemerate is an amazing spell, but I chose Momentary Blink over it, because I can choose when that spell recurs, and am not forced to reuse it on my next turn or lose it.
January 18, 2025 9:31 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #37
wallisface, as long as we are discussing my Ghired, Conclave Exile deck, I would like to put Enduring Vitality into that deck, but I am not certain what card I should replace; I have decided that I shall remove either Commander's Sphere or Decanter of Endless Water to make room for the creature, but which of those artifacts do you believe is less crucial to my deck?
January 18, 2025 9:45 a.m.
wallisface says... #38
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Why Enduring Vitality when Cryptolith Rite is a whole mana cheaper?
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Either of those cards look terrible so just pick whatever one you don't want.
January 18, 2025 5:03 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #39
wallisface, there are two reasons for which I would choose Enduring Vitality over Cryptolith Rite: first, it is a creature itself, which gives it excellent synergy with my creature-focused Ghried deck, and, second, it has self-recursion, which I feel makes it easily worth 1 additional mana over the non-creature enchantment; does that not make sense?
January 19, 2025 3:41 p.m.
wallisface says... #40
DemonDragonJ I thought from the above discussions that your Ghried deck has no reason to care about creatures (only creature tokens).
Paying 2 mana is infinitely better than 3 mana. Personally i’d include Rite before that creature… but you could very easily include both
January 19, 2025 5:12 p.m.
I agree with wallisface. Just because your deck has a lot of creatures doesn’t mean that other creatures have inherent synergy.
Bookrook says... #2
First off, I’m not going to look at all of your commander decks and tell you what you should replace. The jackal can certainly be a good ramp piece in commander, but it gets outclassed quickly if you don’t have ways to give it double strike or get extra combats. As for sixty card formats, the only places it is legal in are legacy and vintage, which is way way way too fast for it.
January 5, 2025 9:39 p.m.