Introduction
Hello and welcome to the land of the Dinosaurs. I made Gishath shortly after it was released because I thought he was cool. It took a lot of discussion from a friend of mine to determine that he was good enough to make a deck around. The good news is that Dinosaur tribal works and it entirely due to our Dino Lord, Gishath, Sun's Avatar. At first I was skeptical about Gishath's stat line versus cost (compared to Akroma, Angel of Wrath who has more abilities, and only 1 less power), but so far his stat line, evergreen ability combination are amazing when you notice that he puts dinosaurs directly into play. Currently there are not a large array of dinosaurs to choose from but the ones that have been released in Ixalan are solid enough to form a tribal list. So I hope I can make you as excited to play big, beefy, prehistoric monsters as I am.
My name is Donald, I am 25 years old, I live in South Dakota as a Computer Engineer. I started playing Magic when I was 15, but was addicted to World of Warcraft and didn't really start until College in 2011. I never got into Standard due to money and didn't get into Modern due to proximity to a store. When I found a group in college playing Commander however, it clicked. My current play group is roughly 8 players, who get together once a week and play for 4+ hours.
Disclaimer
My meta allows split color cards to be played in any deck where all aspects of the card can be paid for with basic lands.
Example:
RAMP!
Seriously ramping is this deck's primary focus. Top deck manipulation is slightly less important, but is the second most valuable part of the deck. These two pieces allow for the primary game plan to work. Ramp also acts as a form of protection for your commander since he has haste. Top deck manipulation lets you push dinosaurs down and draw lands, responses, tutors, or whatever else you need.
Gishath shines right after a wrath, preferably done by an opponent. So aim to put as little to the board until a wrath occurs. If you don't see one coming, commit and just run people down. Try and spread the commander damage around so people don't get removal happy. You should be able to talk people out of removal against your commander for the following reasons.
Haste
Ramp
Scarier targets
Haste and ramp together just makes you able to replay your commander easily and run the person that removed him last time down. So there isn't large incentive to remove Dino God, because all it does is make him mad. Dino God also doesn't have a lot of chances to end games out of no where, so murdering him doesn't stop the rest of the deck from running you down either. Dino God also doesn't stop people from playing. Overall, people should only remove Gishath if your have them almost dead or they just want to slow you down. The latter of course, will just make him mad. So run them down for trying to even approach Dino God's divinity. As such, the real answer to this deck is theft, repeated wraths, Moat-esque effects. So be wary of these.
Rampaging Ferocidon -> Colossal Dreadmaw: Honestly, Ferocidon ended up hitting me way more often than anyone else. I also ended up wishing it was this Dino, every time I saw it.
Thran Dynamo -> Silklash Spider: I never thought, gosh I need to artifact ramp the entire game. I was more scared to play this and over-extend too far. Silklash should help with fliers.
Lurking Predators -> Ripjaw Raptor: Adding more Dinos should work well with the commander. Currently the deck doesn't have enough creatures so using the commander to dig deeper, with more targets sounds like a good idea.
Survival of the Fittest -> Seize the Day: Digs for Dinos and with the commander removes a player from the game. Survival of the Fittest also seems better for when you have low impact ETB creatures mixed with amazing end game cards.
Overwhelming Stampede -> Savage Beating: So I really like Overwhelming stampede, but savage beating fulfills roughly the same function while also being instant speed.
Mind's Eye -> Whispersilk Cloak: So I like Mind's Eye a lot, but with all of the Ramp, top deck manipulation, and Commander I am not sure I actually need it. Whispersilk Cloak makes my commander connect more, and protects against Mazes
Momentous Fall -> Decimate: I didn't really have a point where momentous fall would have been amazing. Decimate however, is jam packed with value almost all the time.
Omnath, Locus of Rage->Goring Ceratops: Omnath is basically the same mana cost as Gishath because you want to drop a fetchland the same turn you play him. Double strike has been amazing in the deck and hitting Dinosaurs with Gishath is also amazing. I am fairly confident this will do well as it curves with the commander but I am fearful a 3/3 body will be too small. I am going to try it and see.
Thalia's Lancers->Nylea, God of the Hunt: Lancers is just too expensive and sorcery speed. Sadly a lot of the Dinosaurs do not have trample. Nylea also can help Gishath dig deeper.
Eternal Witness->Kozilek, Butcher of Truth: I have never needed Eternal Witness to return a card to hand and need my graveyard to more often get shuffled back in. Kozilek fills three positions: Shuffle, Draw, Alt win con. I think there is enough ramp to validate this inclusion
Starstorm->Crushing Vines: I haven't any issues with tokens lately but there have been some fliers and artifacts that need responses.
Rishkar's Expertise->Crushing Canopy: It draws a lot of cards to hand which means I am more likely to draw dinosaurs. I think this change along with Koziliek will be fine. I also need more answers to fliers.
11/19/2017
Worldly Tutor -> Spidersilk Armor: Worldly has been cute, but not impact-ful enough to matter. The health buff of Spidersilk Armor and the added reach should make the deck better overall. Seize the Day -> Cathartic Reunion: Sieze the day hasn't been pulling enough of its weight. It does add a bit of reach but otherwise it stays dead in hand. Cathartic Reunion should help move through the deck however. Reap and Sow -> Faithless Looting: ISBPathfinder has a point. Adding more filtering. Savage Beating -> Tormenting Voice: Same issue as Seize the Day, more digging. Regisaur Alpha -> Wild Guess: Mass Dinosaur haste is underwhelming when you commander is cheating dinos out after combat. Dragon Broodmother -> Glare of Subdual: Dragon Broodmother is just clunky when I want to play my commander. Glare of Subdual sounds amazing with a vigilante commander. Thanks ISB. Chandra, Flamecaller -> Rishkar's Expertise: I don't need the sweep. Expertise is good. Scavenging Ooze -> Relic of Progenitus: I need a more condemning grave hate option. Sakura-Tribe Elder -> Mwonvuli Acid-Moss: Sakura is just... a 2 mana land ramp. Mwonvuli is ramp and removal.
I am a little concerned about Omnath & Rampaging Baloths with a little more thought. This deck has a lot of fatties to it ignoring them. Keep an eye out because it might be fatty overload to be honest.
I do like Ulvenwald Hydra but I question how neccessary it is given how few utility lands you run. I could see something like Silklash Spider possibly doing a good job too. Honestly I am not really sold either way but I thought perhaps with the lower utility land count that possibly a flying wrath effect like the spider could be sweet. If you went back to running Imperial Recruiter you could also tutor for the spider.
Lurking Predators might also be interesting given your topdeck manipulation effects and big fatties. You could push fatty creatures down to keep from drawing them and then let them be thrown in off Lurking
Warstorm Surge - its a big question of if it can live butttt what if you have your commander in play already from a previous turn and then you Warstorm Surge + Swing to push dinos into play. It could be kind of cool given the free dino value. Normally I worry if it will live to next turn but I think its actually fairly solid with the commander given the free guys to play.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon would be a pretty awesome add. I currently only have two copies of Ugin and want to see what the deck looks like without it for the moment.
Hummmmm I will keep those three on my radar. I have issues most of the time where I don't have enough threats so these three were included as great beaters. Imperial Recruiter/Silklash Spider sound like awesome additions if the cards you mentioned end up being issues. For now, I am going to try it as is.
I feel like Lurking Predators/Warstorm Surge are both too greedy. Both have fairly large 'Kill on sight' targets and are too expensive to drop. The part I like about Lurking Predators though, is that even if it gets spot removed it might spit out a creature. I'll have to think about it though.
Reap and Sow still looks really out of place to me. You really dont have much for utility lands that seem worth tutoring. If you just want the land removal effect you could probably move to Mwonvuli Acid-Moss which gives you ramp + a strip mine effect for the same mana instead of paying 6 for the combined. Honestly..... I am not totally convinced that either are great in here as I just dont see the utility lands I would want to prioritize for Reap and Sow as it stands.
Glare of Subdual could be amusing since your commander has vigilance you could tap things down after attacking or at your opponents endsteps. Any other creature can help force your way through with your commander as well which means more commander damage and deeper digging.
Harmonize -> Rishkar's Expertise sure.... Harmonize is stable but I feel like with all these dinos you could take the small risk to draw bigger. It even has a tempo play on the end of it on top of being strong draw with all these fatties.
Worldly Tutor - I still don't like it to be honest. I feel like its really only ok for your commander and even then.... I find it underwhelming.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
You're running enough basics that I'd suggest Land Tax. It can be great for getting fixing, it can ensure you never miss a land drop, and is solid for deck thinning.
So the issue with Land Tax is that I run 9 cards that ramp. This means for Land Tax to work, someone else would need to be ramping harder than I am. Which is unlikely unless someone is playing Karametra, God of Harvests. This means, I would need to remove my ramp in order to include this card. Tithe would be better in this situation because no matter what, it still pulls a plains from deck, or I could use it before ramping to pull more lands to hand.
Ramp in this deck has many strong points.
Makes Draws better
Acts as Commander protection
Makes Commander better
Less lands in deck, means better draw and better Commander procs. More lands on the field makes removing my haste commander less appealing because 1) You annoyed me by killing my commander, 2) I know you now have one less removal than you did last turn, and 3) my Commander has haste so I don't even break stride from removal.
Gameplay Update
I've noticed that my curve has been a little high, I am not moving through enough of my deck, and that dinosaurs in hand are realllll bad.
Noteable Changes Worldly Tutor -> Spidersilk Armor: Worldly has been cute, but not impact-ful enough to matter. The health buff of Spidersilk Armor and the added reach should make the deck better overall. Seize the Day -> Cathartic Reunion: Sieze the day hasn't been pulling enough of its weight. It does add a bit of reach but otherwise it stays dead in hand. Cathartic Reunion should help move through the deck however. Reap and Sow -> Faithless Looting: ISBPathfinder has a point. Adding more filtering. Savage Beating -> Tormenting Voice: Same issue as Seize the Day, more digging. Regisaur Alpha -> Wild Guess: Mass Dinosaur haste is underwhelming when you commander is cheating dinos out after combat. Dragon Broodmother -> Glare of Subdual: Dragon Broodmother is just clunky when I want to play my commander. Glare of Subdual sounds amazing with a vigilante commander. Thanks ISB. Chandra, Flamecaller -> Rishkar's Expertise: I don't need the sweep. Expertise is good. Scavenging Ooze -> Relic of Progenitus: I need a more condemning grave hate option. Sakura-Tribe Elder -> Mwonvuli Acid-Moss: Sakura is just... a 2 mana land ramp. Mwonvuli is ramp and removal.
Introduction
Hello and welcome to the land of the Dinosaurs. I made Gishath shortly after it was released because I thought he was cool. It took a lot of discussion from a friend of mine to determine that he was good enough to make a deck around. The good news is that Dinosaur tribal works and it entirely due to our Dino Lord, Gishath, Sun's Avatar. At first I was skeptical about Gishath's stat line versus cost (compared to Akroma, Angel of Wrath who has more abilities, and only 1 less power), but so far his stat line, evergreen ability combination are amazing when you notice that he puts dinosaurs directly into play. Currently there are not a large array of dinosaurs to choose from but the ones that have been released in Ixalan are solid enough to form a tribal list. So I hope I can make you as excited to play big, beefy, prehistoric monsters as I am.
About the Author
My name is Donald, I am 25 years old, I live in South Dakota as a Computer Engineer. I started playing Magic when I was 15, but was addicted to World of Warcraft and didn't really start until College in 2011. I never got into Standard due to money and didn't get into Modern due to proximity to a store. When I found a group in college playing Commander however, it clicked. My current play group is roughly 8 players, who get together once a week and play for 4+ hours.
Disclaimer
My meta allows split color cards to be played in any deck where all aspects of the card can be paid for with basic lands.
Example:
Why play Gishath
Pros:
Deck List
1x Gishath, Sun's Avatar
Creature (20)
1x Wall of Blossoms
1x Wall of Omens
1x Courser of Kruphix
1x Imperial Recruiter
1x Oracle of Mul Daya
1x Ripjaw Raptor
1x Nylea, God of the Hunt
1x Solemn Simulacrum
1x Raging Swordtooth
1x Silklash Spider
1x Xenagos, God of Revels
1x Bane of Progress
1x Burning Sun's Avatar
1x Carnage Tyrant
1x Colossal Dreadmaw
1x Goring Ceratops
1x Verdant Sun's Avatar
1x Ancient Brontodon
1x Wakening Sun's Avatar
1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Artifact (5)
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Sol Ring
1x Scroll Rack
1x Whispersilk Cloak
Enchantment (6)
1x Mirri's Guile
1x Sylvan Library
1x Spidersilk Armor
1x Glare of Subdual
1x Greater Good
1x True Conviction
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Eladamri's Call
1x Beast Within
1x Chaos Warp
1x Chord of Calling
1x Crushing Canopy
1x Crushing Vines
1x Naya Charm
1x Congregation at Dawn
Sorcery (19)
1x Faithless Looting
1x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Cathartic Reunion
1x Explore
1x Tormenting Voice
1x Wild Guess
1x Cultivate
1x Idyllic Tutor
1x Kodama's Reach
1x Decimate
1x Explosive Vegetation
1x Fiery Confluence
1x Harmonize
1x Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
1x Ranger's Path
1x Skyshroud Claim
1x Tragic Arrogance
1x Austere Command
1x Rishkar's Expertise
Planeswalker (2)
1x Garruk, Primal Hunter
1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1x Arid Mesa
1x Blighted Woodland
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Command Tower
1x Flooded Strand
1x Kessig Wolf Run
1x Krosan Verge
1x Marsh Flats
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Myriad Landscape
1x Plateau
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Savannah
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Stomping Ground
1x Strip Mine
1x Taiga
1x Temple Garden
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Wasteland
1x Windswept Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Yavimaya Hollow
7x Forest
4x Mountain
4x Plains
Strategy
RAMP!
Seriously ramping is this deck's primary focus. Top deck manipulation is slightly less important, but is the second most valuable part of the deck. These two pieces allow for the primary game plan to work. Ramp also acts as a form of protection for your commander since he has haste. Top deck manipulation lets you push dinosaurs down and draw lands, responses, tutors, or whatever else you need.
Gishath shines right after a wrath, preferably done by an opponent. So aim to put as little to the board until a wrath occurs. If you don't see one coming, commit and just run people down. Try and spread the commander damage around so people don't get removal happy. You should be able to talk people out of removal against your commander for the following reasons.
Opening Hands:
Under construction
Piloting
Game Reports
Changelog
Rampaging Ferocidon -> Colossal Dreadmaw: Honestly, Ferocidon ended up hitting me way more often than anyone else. I also ended up wishing it was this Dino, every time I saw it.
Rings of Brighthearth -> Imperial Recruiter: More toolbox sounds awesome and I misunderstood how Rings works with the commander. Oracle of Mul Daya or Courser of Kruphix are awesome targets.
Thran Dynamo -> Silklash Spider: I never thought, gosh I need to artifact ramp the entire game. I was more scared to play this and over-extend too far. Silklash should help with fliers.
Lurking Predators -> Ripjaw Raptor: Adding more Dinos should work well with the commander. Currently the deck doesn't have enough creatures so using the commander to dig deeper, with more targets sounds like a good idea.
Survival of the Fittest -> Seize the Day: Digs for Dinos and with the commander removes a player from the game. Survival of the Fittest also seems better for when you have low impact ETB creatures mixed with amazing end game cards.
Overwhelming Stampede -> Savage Beating: So I really like Overwhelming stampede, but savage beating fulfills roughly the same function while also being instant speed.
Ulvenwald Hydra -> Ancient Brontodon: Free 9/9 beater sounds tremendous. Even more so than Ulvenwald with it's abilities
Mind's Eye -> Whispersilk Cloak: So I like Mind's Eye a lot, but with all of the Ramp, top deck manipulation, and Commander I am not sure I actually need it. Whispersilk Cloak makes my commander connect more, and protects against Mazes
Rampaging Baloths -> Thalia's Lancers: Decent creature, that tutors planeswalkers now.
Iroas, God of Victory -> Ugin, the Spirit Dragon: Awesome planeswalker that can pretty much never hit my Commander
Momentous Fall -> Decimate: I didn't really have a point where momentous fall would have been amazing. Decimate however, is jam packed with value almost all the time.
Omnath, Locus of Rage->Goring Ceratops: Omnath is basically the same mana cost as Gishath because you want to drop a fetchland the same turn you play him. Double strike has been amazing in the deck and hitting Dinosaurs with Gishath is also amazing. I am fairly confident this will do well as it curves with the commander but I am fearful a 3/3 body will be too small. I am going to try it and see.
Thalia's Lancers->Nylea, God of the Hunt: Lancers is just too expensive and sorcery speed. Sadly a lot of the Dinosaurs do not have trample. Nylea also can help Gishath dig deeper.
Eternal Witness->Kozilek, Butcher of Truth: I have never needed Eternal Witness to return a card to hand and need my graveyard to more often get shuffled back in. Kozilek fills three positions: Shuffle, Draw, Alt win con. I think there is enough ramp to validate this inclusion
Starstorm->Crushing Vines: I haven't any issues with tokens lately but there have been some fliers and artifacts that need responses.
Rishkar's Expertise->Crushing Canopy: It draws a lot of cards to hand which means I am more likely to draw dinosaurs. I think this change along with Koziliek will be fine. I also need more answers to fliers.
11/19/2017
Worldly Tutor -> Spidersilk Armor: Worldly has been cute, but not impact-ful enough to matter. The health buff of Spidersilk Armor and the added reach should make the deck better overall.
Seize the Day -> Cathartic Reunion: Sieze the day hasn't been pulling enough of its weight. It does add a bit of reach but otherwise it stays dead in hand. Cathartic Reunion should help move through the deck however.
Reap and Sow -> Faithless Looting: ISBPathfinder has a point. Adding more filtering.
Savage Beating -> Tormenting Voice: Same issue as Seize the Day, more digging.
Regisaur Alpha -> Wild Guess: Mass Dinosaur haste is underwhelming when you commander is cheating dinos out after combat.
Dragon Broodmother -> Glare of Subdual: Dragon Broodmother is just clunky when I want to play my commander. Glare of Subdual sounds amazing with a vigilante commander. Thanks ISB.
Chandra, Flamecaller -> Rishkar's Expertise: I don't need the sweep. Expertise is good.
Scavenging Ooze -> Relic of Progenitus: I need a more condemning grave hate option.
Sakura-Tribe Elder -> Mwonvuli Acid-Moss: Sakura is just... a 2 mana land ramp. Mwonvuli is ramp and removal.
Card Explanations
Under Construction
Wishlist
Ghalta, Primal Hunger - Ohh my god. This is getting added so fast. It is crazy.
Thanks!
Current EDH
Akroma W | Tymna and Bruse RBW
I am a little concerned about Omnath & Rampaging Baloths with a little more thought. This deck has a lot of fatties to it ignoring them. Keep an eye out because it might be fatty overload to be honest.
I do like Ulvenwald Hydra but I question how neccessary it is given how few utility lands you run. I could see something like Silklash Spider possibly doing a good job too. Honestly I am not really sold either way but I thought perhaps with the lower utility land count that possibly a flying wrath effect like the spider could be sweet. If you went back to running Imperial Recruiter you could also tutor for the spider.
Lurking Predators might also be interesting given your topdeck manipulation effects and big fatties. You could push fatty creatures down to keep from drawing them and then let them be thrown in off Lurking
Warstorm Surge - its a big question of if it can live butttt what if you have your commander in play already from a previous turn and then you Warstorm Surge + Swing to push dinos into play. It could be kind of cool given the free dino value. Normally I worry if it will live to next turn but I think its actually fairly solid with the commander given the free guys to play.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
Hummmmm I will keep those three on my radar. I have issues most of the time where I don't have enough threats so these three were included as great beaters. Imperial Recruiter/Silklash Spider sound like awesome additions if the cards you mentioned end up being issues. For now, I am going to try it as is.
I feel like Lurking Predators/Warstorm Surge are both too greedy. Both have fairly large 'Kill on sight' targets and are too expensive to drop. The part I like about Lurking Predators though, is that even if it gets spot removed it might spit out a creature. I'll have to think about it though.
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I ended up dropping Selvala, Heart of the Wilds for Lurking Predators. She just seemed odd in the list, whereas top deck manipulation with Lurking Predators can be gross.
Current EDH
Akroma W | Tymna and Bruse RBW
Glare of Subdual could be amusing since your commander has vigilance you could tap things down after attacking or at your opponents endsteps. Any other creature can help force your way through with your commander as well which means more commander damage and deeper digging.
Harmonize -> Rishkar's Expertise sure.... Harmonize is stable but I feel like with all these dinos you could take the small risk to draw bigger. It even has a tempo play on the end of it on top of being strong draw with all these fatties.
Worldly Tutor - I still don't like it to be honest. I feel like its really only ok for your commander and even then.... I find it underwhelming.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
Ramp in this deck has many strong points.
Less lands in deck, means better draw and better Commander procs. More lands on the field makes removing my haste commander less appealing because 1) You annoyed me by killing my commander, 2) I know you now have one less removal than you did last turn, and 3) my Commander has haste so I don't even break stride from removal.
Current EDH
Akroma W | Tymna and Bruse RBW
I've noticed that my curve has been a little high, I am not moving through enough of my deck, and that dinosaurs in hand are realllll bad.
Noteable Changes
Worldly Tutor -> Spidersilk Armor: Worldly has been cute, but not impact-ful enough to matter. The health buff of Spidersilk Armor and the added reach should make the deck better overall.
Seize the Day -> Cathartic Reunion: Sieze the day hasn't been pulling enough of its weight. It does add a bit of reach but otherwise it stays dead in hand. Cathartic Reunion should help move through the deck however.
Reap and Sow -> Faithless Looting: ISBPathfinder has a point. Adding more filtering.
Savage Beating -> Tormenting Voice: Same issue as Seize the Day, more digging.
Regisaur Alpha -> Wild Guess: Mass Dinosaur haste is underwhelming when you commander is cheating dinos out after combat.
Dragon Broodmother -> Glare of Subdual: Dragon Broodmother is just clunky when I want to play my commander. Glare of Subdual sounds amazing with a vigilante commander. Thanks ISB.
Chandra, Flamecaller -> Rishkar's Expertise: I don't need the sweep. Expertise is good.
Scavenging Ooze -> Relic of Progenitus: I need a more condemning grave hate option.
Sakura-Tribe Elder -> Mwonvuli Acid-Moss: Sakura is just... a 2 mana land ramp. Mwonvuli is ramp and removal.
Current EDH
Akroma W | Tymna and Bruse RBW