This is an awesome deck! If I had one comment to make though, I feel like Ghalta is a "win more" card, meaning it only feels really powerful when you are already miles ahead of your opponent in board state. If you feel like Ghalta is performing well in your deck that feel free to keep it in the deck but I just wanted to voice my opinion it's inclusion.

Glad you like it!

I certainly agree with that statement about Ghalta. It’s true being win-more but I think the cases where it might be the win itself can be pretty valid as well.

I have at times run 3-4 in the Main with the thought that it’ll get answered (which it does quite often). Recovering after they got rid of the first one by following up with a second has been nice on multiple occasions. Of course it’s not usually too taxing mana wise, due to having that high total power.

I think the surprise factor is pretty great, slamming down one Dino, then possibly Ghalta due to its cost reduction. It’s worked nice as a game plan but certainly not “the” game plan. Again as its usually win-more than win.

Hello, I am interested in getting into Pioneer and would love to build a dinosaur tribal deck. I have a few questions regarding your deck, I hope you can answer.

1.) Isn't Flame Sweep and solar blaze in the sidebord kinda redundant? 2.) Solar blaze and Domri kinda negate themselves don't they? Because of the +1 wouldn't all your creatures die? 3.) Eerie Interlude I assume is for control matchups and sweepers and stuff? Wouldn't it be better in the sb and does it really save you that often 4.) Have you considered the Great Henge? Seems like an incredible card in the deck 5.) Your opinion on mana dorks? I feel like 21 lands is very few lands, however I have little experience with the format and the archetype.

Thank you for your time. Cheers

Thanks for your comment! I’ll try to help as best I can. At least giving my best reasoning to help you make a more informed decision for what you might end up including. There are certainly other great options that I might not have mentioned yet.

#1 I don’t feel they are that redundant as they tend to do different things for me at least. I like Flame Sweep for decks with weenies and slowing down Mono Green/Gruul. It’s been nice slowing down some Mono Red but they’ve gotten pretty big. Getting rid of all the mana dorks and often times Pelt Collector before he hits 3/3. Sometimes casting it in response to its second trigger before the counter is put on. Instant speed has been very useful for combat tricks, gain extra value from added Enrage triggers. Great for the surprises, great for small creature sweeps.

Solar Blaze has been fabulous against Mono Green or Gruul since those can get out of hand with large creatures very quick. Usually the early stuff I end up playing I’m my lists is going to be bottom heavy. Solar Blaze fits in wonderfully that way, rarely killing my own guys.

I just like using some combination of both at times. Having lots of wipes feels good for the value that often comes from Enrage. The fact that very few of my own guys die from them is great plus as well.

It really depends on what the opponent is playing, what is is you opening hand with that Solar Blaze. At times I’ve had more even P/T Dinos but currently the majority of the creature base is bottom heavy so I’m more likely to hold onto it because of that.

#2 Sort of continuing on from the previous question, yes with Domri out all your creatures would be killed by Solar Blaze. At first glance It’s certainly not the Planeswalker you’d want to be playing alongside it. I’ve found Domri doesn’t last very long anyways so you might get say, 2 Turns out of it. In which case that works nicely when following up with Solar Blaze. Other times I just plan to (+1),(-2),(-2). Casting SB that third turn after he dies. That’s just some rough thoughts but I wanted to highlight how I play around that seeming drawback. They blow removal on Domri? “Thanks! Now I’ll just play Solar Blaze”.

#3 Yes, your partly right as to why I like it. Being able to dodge sweepers and various other things is awesome. Especially Supreme Verdict! Haha. I consider it even more versatile though.

Say the enemy is swinging in with some of their creatures while you’re low. Confronted with a choice of block or lose. Eerie Interlude would turn this situation around! Possibly leading to a game winning swing on your next turn due to them being more open. The main idea is to cast it after you’ve declared all your blockers, BUT before passing to damage (hopefully spreading them all out to each attacker).

This negates the damage between those creatures it simply doesn’t happen. Then there is the bonus of Enrage triggers when they enter again during the End Step. Bam! Now it your turn, you stopped what would have been a lethal swing with a little fake out, didn’t lose any creatures and likely got extra value to boot! Since they came down during the opponents End Step, everyone is primed and ready to attack.

This would only work so often though as most opponents would learn fairly quick and probably attempt to bait out Eerie Interlude. Then things become even more interesting.

It could possibly be a nice later game play, say Turn 6 at the end of the opponents Second Main you cast it with Regisaur Alpha Ripjaw Raptor and Ranging Raptors out to Draw, Ramp and get another Dino Token.

For the fact of its value, versatility and chance of it getting baited, I like 3-4 in the main if I use it. It certainly could go in the Sideboard as well though it has/can work well against a wide range of decks for various reasons and is rarely a dead draw.

#4 I have definitely considered The Great Henge! I don’t use it at the moment due to drawing multiples feeling pretty bad. It’s very good for sure and I’d want to see it consistently by putting 3+ in the Main. However I prefer Embercleave for a few reasons. Firstly it has stolen many games, leading to a win off its surprise cast after blockers have been declared. Secondly it gives the important Trample which can be quite lacking for Dinos. Chump blocked for days.

It’s great use on the key player, Marauding Raptor is one of my favourite points. He’s naturally getting big during a number of turns but always has a hard time getting through. Who wouldn’t choose to block a 6/3 or an 8/3 etc with a chump. A great illustration of where Embercleave comes in handy for me.

Then there are the inevitable times where you’ve already got one out and one in hand. It would be a great surprise to cast that second one on an unblocked or would have died attacker.

For Embercleave, I want to see it often and I’m not that sad to see multiples for surprise possibilities. I feel good putting more in to the deck even though it’s a Legendary. Where The Great Henge I’d be noticeably sadder.

Mainly I love keeping it as consistent as possible. Any choices fitting that are a step up in my books

#5a I just don’t prefer mana dorks with my Dino lists. They are absolutely powerful and have their place in various top tier decks. They become a Dead Draw while Marauding Raptor is out, die to my beloved sweepers and I’ve already got 8 cards that pseudo-ramp the majority of creatures anyway.

Otepec and/or Marauding often help to cast multiple creatures in a turn (plus other great perks) where the dorks can only ever assist casting one thing. They just don’t fit for me.

#5b Yes 21 Lands is definitely going to seem low to some people however there are a number of factors helping keep things consistent/ramp at 21 (vs something like 24,25).

Firstly is the fabulous Commune with Dinosaurs. Sometimes it’s better holding off playing it T1 (for more information when used later) if I’ve got the land drops. It simply helps grab that extra land or key creature and is great at any point in the game.

Then there is on of my All Stars, Ranging Raptors. Fairly self explanatory but often it’s coming down as a double (eventually) Rampant Growth plus creature. That’s always been a great boon for me.

Then there is the consideration of the 8 pseudo-rampers which will very often bring down the overall cost of the deck, needing less lands. Leading to something like 21 working well, for me at least.

Anyway that’s a start for now, hopefully it gets your inspiration/juices flowing! I’m happy to answer any more questions or discuss other options.

Thanks for the answers. Just to clarify I would not choose Great Henge over embercleave. I love Embercleave, already own 4 from my rakdos knights deck. The card is the reason I found this threat cause I thought, Embercleave and Dinos seems like fun. Great Henge I considered like 2 in the sb for certain matchups, I imagine it must be cheap in a dino deck and is just so much card draw. I think I will just start with your list or a cheaper version and see how it goes, my local meta etc. since that needs to be considered as well.

Ah okay, that makes sense now. Yeah Henge would work quite well in a Dino Deck. It can be nice when using Rotting Regisaur to reduce its cost by the max. Otherwise yeah it would certainly be draw power I’d be happy to have. Maybe in the future I’ll give it a go. For now I’m happy enough with the draws from Ripjaw and top deck searching from Commune.

I’ve considered Vivien, Champion of the Wilds for more card advantage among the other great things she brings to the table. Shamanic Revelation is also on my radar.

Yeah, there is certainly cheaper options to start with up above. :) I think they’ll at least give a feel without breaking the bank.

Thoughts on Forerunner of the Empire? I've liked using it as basically a tutor to get the exact dino I wanted when I needed it, plus bonus enrage triggers and wiping out small creatures on the opponents side if it hangs around. It doesn't seem like it gets much use so I'm wondering what I am missing.

Oh that was you with the suggestion?! The card popped up for me and I thought it was some random Tappedout thing.

I love Forerunner of the Empire! I just have shifted away from him for the moment but I could see myself going back to it. I especially like it with a follow up swing from Etali, Primal Storm for a neat combo.

I don’t think you’re missing anything. It certainly is and has been a great way to trigger Enrage for me. Regisaur Alpha has been so great for getting two triggers. It works so well with Forerunner and if you wanted to give Haste to Regisaur, tapping Otepec Huntmaster before he dies from the second ping is an option as well.

I definitely would not use Forerunner in a list that also had Mana Dorks. Of course you could always tap them in response before the damage is dealt but I’d want my dorks to stick around as much as they can I think.

Twinflame is one of my favourite new additions that I'm strongly considering. It would naturally work well with Forerunner to get more pings. Getting a Regisaur copy and Dino Token for then the two pings would awesome.

I think one of the main reasons I have shied away from Forerunner was due to the introduction of Marauding Raptor. Bringing Ranging Raptors down to 1, I often like to leave it up for blocking and would forgo the ping that turn. Really hurting his usefulness. Then any Dino Token would also die with those combined pings.

Overall I feel I’d be passing up on pinging everything too often that it’d start to feel like not such a good choice. I think I’ll start seeing what it’s like and work him in again though.

Thanks for the reminder!

Thanks for your sideboard tipps, sorry for not posting the question here. Anyway, I would be interested in your opinion of the using shadowspear in this deck. I feel like this could add some trample, lifelink and other tools against aggro and control decks by removing hexproof.

No problem, I’m glad it helped you some. It was good for me too since I think I’ll add some some of the thoughts to my lacking Sideboard section (I’ve been meaning to put one in for a while!)

I think Shadowspear would be a fantastic idea! I haven’t pick any up myself yet but it would still be pretty good having it out and an Embercleave at the same time. Being able to give two different creatures Trample would be nice.

Were you thinking of replacing Embercleave with it? I think that could still work but a split of something like 2-2 or even 3-3 would be pretty good. I’d lean more to 3-3 unless the creature count is a little low.

The Lifelink on Shadowspear would be a great addition since it’s something Dinos kinda lack. There are other ways I’ve gained life in the past (Huatli, Warrior Poet and Verdant Sun's Avatar) but the fact Trample come along with it is incredibly valuable I feel.

I don't know, having both it the deck feels good, though I don't have much experience with shadowspear or this deck. I am very much looking forward to playing it. In standard I played a lot of rakdos knights and embercleave is just a powerful card. I could imagine having shadowspear in the sideboard for certain matchups where you need lifelink (like in the mono black aggro decks), maybe the mirror or other gruul decks. Replacing sth I could see carnage tyrant go, it is very expensive and there is ceratops in the sideboard for control the blue matchups. I think one thing to consider is that commune gets worse if a lot of your cards arent dinos, so with a 3-3 split there would be 14 cards in the deck that aren't dinos, so maybe one of these cards can go or eerie interlude. I could also see cutting ghalta or e.g. replacing commune with elemantal bond and adding more lands

Hey looking forward to it is a good start. You are absolutely right, wanting plenty/enough things for Commune to grab. I’ve felt good with at around 24 Dinos if possible but something like 27-28 would be quite nice.

I’ve almost never whiffed with Commune and adding Shadowspear could certainly creep the stuff it can’t grab a little to high. It does seem like a reasonable sideboard choice like you say. The lifelink option would be good to have when needed, maybe 2,3 in the side. I’ve never liked 1 ofs personally.

My favourite thing about Dinos is the fact many are tools themselves so it’s been great for Commune to grab/find them faster.

Eerie Interlude does seem like it could go, I’m thinking of moving it back to the sideboard myself in favour of a few Shifting in the main. Yeah, replacing Carnage with Shifting would be quite reasonable.

It’s really nice having that Commune early and late even but I could see replacing some/all if the number of targets it can grab drops too low. I’ve just loved having something for Turn 1.

As a dino enthusiast, this is pretty decent depending on your opponent. Carnage Tyrants are excellent late game with the hexproof. I see this getting land/mana starved once Marauding Raptor or Otepec are removed. Check out my Enraged Raptors Pioneer which has been doing very well in LGS play considering how fast it can get, and if you can pull off the Million Polyraptor combo (barring a board wipe) that has been a HUGE surprise to everyone I've played.

There definitely can be the possibility to get starved, certainly a bit more risk however I find it balanced out by the reward. Tying the stable ramp to a creature, often times more than one land from it is great value to me. It pretty fantastic against Red especially, leaving it up to chump block and really has deterred attacks at times. Ripjaw Raptor as well is of course amazing for that, deterring attacks.

I think for the Polyraptor combo I’d strongly consider Regisaur Alpha to set up and allow the game winning swing that turn it goes off. I’ve wanted to add that possibility (if I ever did play the combo myself) and Regisaur Alpha is simply so Core to me anyway it’s already in there.

Just as a heads up, if you play MTGA, this deck is Historic Legal with the exception of Eerie Interlude in the SB and some lands.

Oh yes absolutely, I think I’ll put that point into the decks info. It’s nice that someone can basically play this on ARENA and get a feel/practice with it.

The future implementation of Pioneer to Arena will be fantastic and hopefully soon.

Will you be adding any of the new Ikoria Dinosaurs to this deck?

Yes! I’ve actually been working on one focused around Snapdax and Vadrok. Rainbow Apex Dinos

That is pretty rough of a list but feels good so far. I like Turn 3 Vadrok mutated onto Marauding Raptor for instance. It feels pretty smooth in the mana base with Unclaimed Territory.

I’m looking forward to refining it more!

If you have any questions about it I’m happy to answer!

This list is sweet! Have you thought about Reckless Rage? It's super efficient removal, and gives you free Enrage triggers.

Also, you're extremely close to having Kaheera, the Orphanguard as a companion. Cutting Otepec Huntmaster would be unfortunate, but is it worth it for having +1 cards in your hand every game?

I have Kaheera as my Cats companion, and it's been incredible.

Thankyou!

Oh yes about Reckless Rage I’ve certainly used it in the past and could see myself going back to it in the future. It’s definitely nice for getting of something like Questing Beast and being Instant speed has help me many times.

Say one of my guys is being targeted with Lava Coil, in response Reckless Rage on it, remove one of their decent sized threats and get a second Enrage Trigger. I just prefer to have it in the sideboard (feel it’s better there) and keep the Main generally good no matter what comes Game 1.

I don’t think I’d use it in a Bo1 setting since there are a number of times it’ll be a dead card. Though I like what it can do for Dinos.

Kaheera A great suggestion! I was certainly excited to have another Dino Lord when I first saw her. It didn’t take long to reason that she just wouldn’t be good (at least how I prefer to play Dinos).

Like you say, it would mean the removal of Otepec Huntmaster something I’m quite opposed to unless I’ve gone heavy boarding in Flame Sweep. It would also mean the removal of Marauding Raptor IMO, since that’s the main/best Turn 2 with Otepec gone. Holding off on playing Marauding, just to let Kaheera get on board without being killed is too slow for me.

I might go back and see about working her in but currently I’m doing other things. Companion is strong for sure but at least this specific one hurts things a little to much having to bend to the requirements.

Cats would be fantastic though! I think I’ve read about her being used in Elementals to good effect.

I have been following this deck for quite some time and I had a question about the most recent edits

I was curious if the move from a Jund to Gruul is more consistent with what you want the deck to do?

I was actually stoked about the inclusion of Rotting Regisaur, but I guess I wanted to know what was behind the choice of ultimately removing him into the current iteration.

This is purely for my own curiosity as I am always eager to see your changes to this deck

Thank you!

Thanks! Happy to hear your keep up with it.

Yeah it’s definitely been more consistent. I found with Rotting Regisaur things were kinda clunky mana wise, having some lands that made cut down on the that I currently absolutely need for Flame Sweep.

It’s been such an important spell to combat decks based around Winota, Lurrus/Obosh Red and Mardu Knights for example. 12-13 sources has felt good since I really just need one .

Another thing with Rotting, is some of the great removal that came in Ikoria. It has sucked getting him removed with his discard trigger on the stack, sometimes not getting an attack in if Otepec wasn’t played Turn 2. I don’t feel bad with the loss of some power as I fill that space with great stuff like more Shifting Ceratops etc.

I’m sure I’ll go back to it eventually especially with Monday’s Ban Announcement! Winota going away would make me reconsider using Rotting I think.

Hey just wanna send a quick thank you for this awesome guide to dino's in pioneer. I recently got super into the idea of making a dino tribe deck for my local pioneer events. After a few rough drafts i got a working list but after finding this and getting to read through someone who has played with many of the options, i super appreciate getting to hear your thoughts and experiences with all the different dinos! Thanks so much and i hope to see more!