"Welcome... to Jurassic Park" - John Hammond (cue nostalgic theme song)
Dinosaurs, one of my favorite tribes alongside with cats. One of the best tribes for Naya and has a number of different ways for building it.
Here, the goal is simple: Grow big, go big, then go home. With enough ramp to theoretically cast Zacama (and Gishath) as early as turn 3, expect to be a near-constant threat to the board state.
---STARTING HAND---
Before the game can begin, we need to know what is required in our starting hand. With this deck, unless you are playing against an opponent that has an anti-creature deck or is significantly higher in power level than this, any hand that has two of our three colors, or ways to get it is good. Preferably this is a green source and a red source, but this can (and should!) vary depending on what color cards you have in hand. Further, running with only one land in hand and only one mana rock (Sol Ring) is NOT a good idea. Ever. Bin it, and draw anew. The Golden Hand is two lands, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Skyshroud Claim/Circuitous Route/Gilded Lotus, Farseek/Nature's Lore/Rampant Growth, and Zacama, Primal Calamity.
---EARLY GAME---
For now, build your mana in any way you can, and avoid leaving yourself open. Ramp with any of the seven sorceries, 6 artifacts, 1 enchantment, and 1 creature, but do not do so in such a way where you are only ramping if you do not have enough to cast any creatures afterwards because you WILL be target number one.
We leave midgame once two things are achieved - we have enough to cast Gishath for the first time.
---MID GAME---
First though is our commander. By this point we have enough to cast the Sun's Avatar, so what now? Well, simply put - SWING THAT STICK!
Obviously there is a chance someone has creatures out, and we want to ensure the utmost amount of cards get filtered through (we have 34 creatures, of which 28 are dinosaurs, or 30.4% of the deck (minus starting hand of 7 + commander). That is only a third of the deck, and we need as many as we can get as early as we can get them. So how do we go about this? Well, short of bolting, exiling, or Zacaming your opponent's creatures, we have four main ways:
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Whispersilk Cloak - Fairly straightforward. Gishath can no longer be blocked or targeted (by anything!). Works against any deck.
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Trailblazer's Boots - What's that? Your commander deck has a non-basic out? Well then you are a prime, succulent target for Gishath's mighty jaws! Swing uncontested at any who dare not play basic lands!
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Xenagos, God of Revels - The alternative approach, OVERWHELMING FORCE! Gishath has trample, so simply making him really big will get loads of damage through on the opponent and devour any foolish blockers they thought would be enough to stop the might of the Sun!
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Huatli, Warrior Poet - Overwhelming force is nice, but instead let's just send out the raptors and distract all of those pesky blockers our opponents think they are safe behind. Nothing and no one can withstand the roar of Gishath!
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Majestic Heliopterus - Opponent's got too many guys walking around on the ground? Well I guess it's time for the Sun to rise into the sky! Swing with both of these and Gishath can just fly right over all those little crawlers and take a chomp right out of your opponent!
To further help with Gishath's triggers, we need to be maximizing the amount of dinosaurs we have up on top. For this, we have three cards to help us:
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Herald's Horn - While this doesn't necessarily help outright since it occurs before the drawstep, this lets us see ahead of time whether we are going to get a dino or a non-dino. If we get a dino, we can choose to also get another card as well. Pure value, and works great with the next two cards
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Scroll Rack - What? Can't an Old Fogey read? No? Well then I suppose it's basically Dinotopia (remember that?), and some dinos like to help out in the library. With this we can toss any dinos we may have in hand onto the top of our library before swinging in with Gishath and getting them into play!
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Sensei's Divining Top - Much like Scroll Rack, we can manipulate the top of our deck (admittedly only and always three, whereas Rack is however many you want), for a cheap and simple . Just make sure that you don't leave the top on top though!
So, we have our commander, and can swing in whilst manipulating the top of the deck. That's great, and winning through the commander damage alone is fine, however we need other ways of closing out the game too! Here we are entering the END GAME, as a number of these cards are likely out or in hand.
---END GAME---
To close out the game (without Gishath's damage), we have 5 combos (though only 2 distinct ones).
Combos?? Why yes, dinosaurs have combos! The by and large most obvious combo card is Polyraptor. Simply deal a point of damage, and boom a second copy. Deal damage to that and boom, another, and another, and so on.
So what cards does a dino player like you need to go infinite? Well, there are quite a few ways, varying in effectiveness and ease:
Both of these also trigger any and all enrage triggers as many times as you wish: Apex Altisaur, Polyraptor, Raptor Hatchling (does need some other buff first!), Ravenous Daggertooth, Siegehorn Ceratops, and Trapjaw Tyrant.
Like the ones earlier, these also generate as many enrage triggers as you desire, but only with Polyraptor, as without it there is no other way for this to go infinite
Now, unlike our earlier combos, Polyraptor + Marauding Raptor go infinite on their own, and because Marauding is a forced trigger, if none of the above four cards are available, then doing this combo will end the game on the spot in a stalemate. If that's fine to you, then go on ahead, otherwise however, hold off until you can do this combo. Since the combo costs either and , , if you already have Zacama out, or , and this combo is achievable (with an incredible hand+draws) as early as turn 3 as well!
This combo can, with the right other creature and the appropriate amount of land based mana-generation, create infinite mana. Have Cloudstone Curio and any other creature (likely the cheap ones, Grand Arbiter, Marauding Raptor, Raptor Hatchling, Siegehorn Ceratops, or Sky Terror) on the battlefield. Tap all your lands, cast Zacama. Zacama will then untap all of your lands as you return the other creature to your hand. From there tap all your lands, recast the other creature bouncing Zacama and recasting him. So on and so forth. If done with enough of a mana base to produce at least 1 extra mana, you will now generate infinite mana! (and infinite ETBs if that matters in your game.)
Of course, not every game will have you with 9 mana on turn 3, so what can we do to slow down our opponents?
Well, we have a few options at our disposal:
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Grand Abolisher prevents our opponents from doing any shenanigans during our turns
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Kinjalli's Sunwing is basically Thalia but for dinosaurs, slowing down our opponent's creatures
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Trapjaw Tyrant with any way of triggering enrage allows us to free up the board by exiling any target creature on field (until he leaves, so be careful!)
Then of course there is the flat out removal, with Bolt, Path, Swords, the abilities of Zacama, Reclamation Sage; Fire Ants pings all non-flyers and Forerunner pings all creatures.
The biggest downside of this deck is removal spells on us. We run exactly one recursion spell - Eternal Witness, so it can be problematic trying to get stuff back if we are continously blown up. Not all is lost however! From personal playtests where I got unlucky or was being constantly beaten down throughout the game, the beauty of this deck is its resilience, allowing me in both times winning over 2 hour long games from near defeat! My recommendation with this deck is do not give up until you are out.
Any suggestions on how to improve this deck? Leave it down below, I'm open to anything really, so long as you also suggest what card(s) to remove from the deck. I would absolutely prefer to keep it Dinosaur tribal, so adding in more non-Dinos is a very big no-no here, and unlikely to be really done, and I would encourage you to instead redo the list with your own suggestions in that case. After all, dinosaurs aren't for everyone, but dinosaurs will love having more people play them!
I would also prefer to keep the Enrage as a subtheme rather than focusing purely on it. As is, this deck can win pretty quickly and easily thanks to Gishath's ability. Spending a bunch of mana to whip my own dinosaurs into doing something isn't something I'm overly fond of, which is why the ones present go infinite once they are all in place. That said, any way to improve/cheapen them, and I'm all ears!
EDITS:
After looking through Mortlocke's The Predator of Predators, I noticed that one of his infinite mana generation combos for Zacama, Primal Calamity amongst others only involved adding one card to this deck that I did not already have, Cloudstone Curio. Not only does this generate infinite mana with Zacama, but because it is a "may" trigger, that only triggers when a creature "enters play", it means that it can also affect tokens. In other words, it acts as another way to end the Polyraptor + Marauding Raptor infinite combo. I've since added these combos explanation to the endgame section.
That said, if you like infinite mana and having an easier way of doing it while still playing Dino Tribal (with Zacama at the head), I highly recommend checking out Mortlocke's deck!
REPLACEMENTS:
Lightning Greaves -> Cloudstone Curio
Reclamation Sage -> Thrashing Brontodon
Belligerent Brontodon -> Runic Armasaur
Land Tax -> Defense of the Heart
