Great combo breakdown! In my time playing with Zacama I have found that he is a surprisingly strong control commander! I normally have insane amounts of Mana with him in play and I just deal with everything on the board tell I kill everyone with commander damage!

My list is more of a good stuff build, versus your tribal build, but I have good news for you! Regal Behemoth was updated to a Dino this week! It works in trial, and is amazing with Zacama! I would also consider removing 3-4 land.

Judging by some of you cards, you are not on a budget, so I would consider mana doublers like Mana Reflection and Mirari's Wake.

Please also checkout my list, I would love some feedback

Za-Ca-Ma - Split Personality Disorder (Dino Addn!)

Commander / EDH* VexenX

SCORE: 3 | 57 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

Excited to build one more commander deck, and think I'll use yours as my "scaffolding", since I already own 3 of the key cards needed: Huatli, Radiant Champion, Aggravated Assault, and of course, Zacama herself! Was thinking about selling the only Aggro A I own, but not anymore..... Will need to cut costs by at least 50% for my budget, and therefore will end up as more casual?

Anyway, thanks LVL_666 for showing me The Way to my final EDH deck!

VexenX, thanks for the upvote. I found the combos online at Mtggoldfish. It's a great resource. Another combo I found from the previously mentioned site i'm considering is Blood Sun + Gruul Turf. It negates all of the negative effects of the lands, and can potentially slow down opponents, like those who like to use Fetchlands. What do you think? Additionally, I'll take the suggestion of adding Regal Behemoth to the deck. Being Monarch (extra card draw) and having a mana doubler is just too good to pass up.

I'm trying to build the best zacama deck possible, so there's a chance I may have to cut some dinos to make it work. I was thinking of experimenting with Odric, Lunarch Marshal.

HorseFist, thanks for the compliments and upvote! I'm glad this deck could be used as a base for your own monstrosity. Currently this deck isn't quite built yet, but it's definitely getting there. I want to make this deck as competitive as possible, but i'm not sure what direction to go in as it's still very early and very rough. Also, what do you think about the combination of Blood Sun + Gruul Turf? Also, what place do you think Food Chain has in the deck? I want to include it mostly for flavor...but does it have any potential in this deck?

Hey, I really like this deck because it's dinosaurs and you'd be nuts not to love that but if you don't mind me offering a few criticisms here they are.

1. I think that like VexenX said, if that Regal Behemoth is now a dinosaur than it 100% belongs in here. Get that sweet sweet ramp!
2. I think that Polyraptor combo is super dope. At first when I was reading it I thought that it wouldn't work as you'd effectively start an infinite loop you couldn't break out of, but that may clause on the Forerunner saves that haha
3. I would suggest against the Blood Sun as now you're looking at cutting a card to bring you closer to winning to help out yourself only a little while hitting only about a dozen cards in the format. Granted, they're super common in EDH but I'd still suggest leaving it out for something that is going to help you wreck someone's face

LordMithos, thank you for the compliment. Indeed, the moment I saw Zacama I knew this is definitely the #2 deck for me. As a planeswalker, I will forever be a Sliver...but Dinos? They are so awesome I just have to play them. Regal Behemoth is definitely in. I just wish they would reprint it with the proper subtype, and better art. That dino looks a little wussy. I'm not going to go with the Blood Sun combo. While it seemed like a neat idea, it just doesn't fit in EDH as there are just so many cards in the deck that it won't be nearly as consistent as I would like. Thanks again for the comment!...and a +1 never hurts too. Yes, i'm shameless. I know.

Love the build, and now I need to build another dino deck. Rivals is looking great. I think you should consider adding in Academy Rector if you can afford it. I think you've got plenty of ways you could kill it off yourself, and go get Aggravated Assault.

I'm not sure why no one is running Food Chain with this monster yet. If you can run any kind of mana boosters like Mirrari's Wake, Zendikar Resurgent, or quality lands like Growing Rites of Itlimoc  ^Flip or Gaea's Cradle, and you're off to the races. If you have a haste enabler on the table for Zacama, then its money from there.

bushido_man96, thanks for the compliment. Academy Rector is cool and all, but honestly my only real hangup with her is her aesthetic. The ol' bag doesn't have anything Dino about her...and she definitely doesn't look like some tribal jungle denizen. But her ability is downright amazing. Food Chain did catch my eye, but every single time I see it it's always in some Prossh, Skyraider of Kher deck. So, I've always associated it with decks that have alot of creatures on the board. I see this card only giving diminishing returns. Could you walk me through a scenario where Food Chain could win me the game?

As much as i'd like to run Gaea's Cradle, i'm not sure about it's returns. I run big scary creatures that rarely hit the board in droves. I'll experiment with it though. As for Growing Rites of Itlimoc  ^Flip, it's an okay "land". I'm not entirely sold on it, but i'll experiment with it anyway.

Also, this is shameless...but a uh...+1 would be nice.

Hey, I'm glad others have chimed in on Blood Sun and Food Chain, as I've never played either so can't really help there.... also, I probly won't go Dino Tribal when I put my version together, but I can tell you the 3 other cards I'll def be incl. from this list: Sunbird's Invocation, Greater Good, and of course Enlightened Tutor for fetching.

The Food Chain combo usually goes with something like Misthollow Griffin, Eternal Scourge, or tokens because they become infinite mana combos that you then dump into your win condition. Which you could do with your Polyraptor combo into a Fireball or something but now we are in magical Christmas land.

Cloudstone Curio if you're just abusing the commander's untap ability

@LVL_666: If you've got Aggravated Assault on the board, and you remove Zacama with Food Chain, you have that mana to cast Zacama. So, you tap everything out, paying the Commander tax with two lands you untapped from last time Zacama came into play. Zacama enters the battlefield, untapping all your lands. Attack with all creatures you can, then activate Aggravated Assault. Attack all-out with your big creatures, then in the next main phase, you Food Chain Zacama again, recast, and run through extra attack phases as much as you can. I'd need to play with it some to really figure out how often you could pull it off, but even if you can pull off three attack phases with big dinosaurs, you're probably getting closer to winning the game.

Boundless Realms could be used as a final land ramp card so you can dump out all the dinos in your grip the following turn. Polyraptor + Forerunner of the Empire + Rite of Passage is pretty sweet tech. Maybe more white cards to help with color balancing with your lands could be Breath of Life, and Resurrection. Angry Omnath to synergize with the land ramping? +1'ed

First of all, sorry for violating the rules of the forum. I really missed that part in the description.

Temur Sabertooth seems really important for your mana combos so it is probably a good idea to add another card with the same/similar ability. To level up the consistency of the deck.

Ashnod's Altar is perhaps an option. It isn't able to produce infinit mana with Zacama, Primal Calamity because you have to play him from the command zone but you can produce a lot of it with Mana Reflection/Zendikar Resurgent/Mirari's Wake in place. So it is probably enough to win the game.

Cathars' Crusade could also be used as a combo piece for Polyraptor if you want.

Overall the deck is really nice!

• @ HorseFist, thanks for commenting on the deck - good luck in constructing your own version. I hope it is nice and consistent and you have good times out of it.

• @ LordMithos, Food Chain doesn't seem to be as much of a value in this deck as it would be in a Prossh deck. I mean, I could use all those infinitely large Polyraptors from the game ending combo, and feed them into Food Chain but at that point...what does it matter? I have a nigh-infinite number of raptors that have nigh infinite power and toughness. at that point i'm already in magical Christmas land lol.

• @ WalkingIllusion, Cloudstone Curio does have my...curiosity but I did the math and it doesn't quite play out to be of much value. Allow me to elaborate:

With Cloudstone Curio + 9 lands in play, I tap all my lands to play Zacama for the first time. I then bounce another dino from the board, ideally something with an awesome etb trigger like Wakening Sun's Avatar that has already cleared the board at an earlier point. Then i'd have to wait until next turn to play WSA again. I don't see too much value out of that card outside of this scenario. Do you see something I don't?

• @ bushido_man96, I don't think this deck gets as much value out of Food Chain as you might think. Lets run through a scenario in depth:

Lets say I have 9 lands + Aggravated Assault + Food Chain + Etali, Primal Storm in play. I attack with Etali. During my 2nd main phase I tap the 9 lands to put Zacama into play, the lands untap and then I tap them again for 9 and send Zacama into the Food Chain for . That nets me a total of floating, and my commander back in the command zone.

I'll spend of that mana to recast my commander giving me 8 floating. I put into Aggravated Assault, into a commander ability. My 9 lands untap, and I proceed to attack again with Etali, Primal Storm.

At this point i've played my commander twice from the command zone. I sac commander to Food Chain and tap my lands netting me in total floating mana again. I recast Zacama again for , giving me floating mana. I send to Aggravated Assault (The goes away.) and I attack with Etali, Primal Storm one more time.

After playing my commander three times from the command zone I can now float that , but this time Zacama will cost me to play and i'll have left floating. Not enough to activate Aggravated Assault without tapping a land. So i'll have to tap one of the 9 that untap off of Zacama's ETB trigger. Etali, Primal Storm does his thing and at this point I have 8 untapped lands. I send Zacama to the Food Chain and I net only 18 mana this time. Zacama will now cost a whopping 17 mana. Obviously at this point the sacrifice wasn't worth it, so I guess we've reached the end of this exhaustive gravy train. Let's add up the totals!

I can get: 3 triggers out of Zacama 3 uses of Aggravated Assault + my 1 normal combat phase, and 3 attacks out of any dinos I have on the field netting me a decent amount of damage. But it may not necessarily be game ending. Is my math right? I think my eyes went cross at some point. I feel the verdict is still out on if Food Chain is worth it. For now, i'm just going to sit on the fence about it.

Hey LVL_666, nice to see a new deck by you.

I know you're going for flavor here with Dinos, but I think if you want to make this deck more competitive consider moving outside of the Dino tribal sub-theme and instead play good Commander creatures in Naya colors. Dinos are fun and cool, but lets be honest they're not competitive. Simply because they cost too much mana for little value in return. I think Zacama, Primal Calamity can be a very good Dino Commander for causal play, but not competitive play with Dinos. The competitive aspect comes from Zacama being a combo piece from the Command Zone reminiscent of Breya, Etherium Shaper, but the other Dinos aren't helping to achieve these combos.

@LVL_666, that sounds about right. By its very nature, there will be a point of diminishing returns when you bring Zacama back. If you have a land in play like Gaea's Cradle or Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun, and a decent board state of creatures, that mana can add up to a little bit more. But, hopefully, by the time you've attacked with multiple dinosaurs three times (especially if you have Gishath dealing damage in there), then you most likely can wipe out at least one player, and have a solid board state to work with going forward. Also, if you have some kind of haste enable on the field, your hitting with Zacama, too, stacking up the commander damage.

It may not be that great, and I may be living in Magical Christmas land here. But, if I ever get to build it and give it a try, I'll let you know how it goes.

• @ multimedia, Thank you for the comment..and...you're right. By focusing so heavily on flavor I realize that I'm simply in the wrong in thinking I could make this competitive. This deck by nature has some decent synergy, but sadly Zacama, Primal Calamity falls quite short compared to something like Animar, Soul of Elements. Additionally, if I truly wanted to make Zacama competitive then it can't be Dino Tribal. Just...Naya good stuff? At that point the flavor would be lost and I wouldn't want to play the deck anymore.

• @bushido_man96, I came to the conclusion that i'm not going to tune this deck out to be as well oiled and greased as a proper competitive EDH deck. Instead, i'm going to operate on a budget to make it fun, flavorful, and as functional and consistent as possible within those boundaries. So, i'm going to start by cutting some particularly expensive cards...and move from there.

Sounds like a good plan! The only reason Food Chain fits in my budget is because I already have a few of them from several years ago.

So I am trying to stay away from making another tribal deck, but I am also running a Zacama deck as well. Whereas you are going with tribal beat down and destruction, I seem to be going in a unique direction I guess. Not your typical Zacama deck apparently, but one that seems to be a threat and needs to be dealt with... so I guess that means its working lol. I do like a lot of what you have here even if it is a different direction. I noticed in one comment that you mentioned adding Odric, and I can say that he is a great addition. If you want to strive a bit away from flat tribal, add Craterhoof Behemoth that guy puts frowny faces on opponents when he comes out haha. Also, Paradox Engine has proved to be a huge top card in my deck. Having Zacama come out and having him untap BOTH lands and everything else is far too good.

Take a look at my deck and pop some suggestions. I would love to bounce some ideas with you and make Zacama the threat hes meant to be. Oh, and an up vote for you for sure!

All hail Zacama!!! :p

Check out my deck: Calamity is coming...

I take part of my comment back, your deck is not as tribal centered as I originally thought lol. Still the same great deck!

• bushido_man96 While Food Chain is an awesome card, I just don't see it's usefulness. For that dollar amount it has to be a viable combo piece, but at best it's something of a "goodstuff" card in my opinion. What synergies do you see with Food Chain?

• Onlytruereject, sorry for taking awhile to send a response. I'm lazy, and at times I just get preoccupied with other things. I have a spare Paradox Engine, but I don't see how it's worthwhile to include as it doesn't untap lands, and I don't quite have enough Mana rocks to justify it's use. I think i'll mosey on over to your deck page and see how you do things. Odric, Lunarch Marshal is pretty neat, but he's not a dinosaur. I want to keep as many dinos as possible in this deck. I know it's going to be slow, and relatively weak (or casual as some might say) but that's okay with me. I really just want it to work well, and be within theme.

LVL_666 I can understand the thoughts behind Paradox Engine Ive found that it works wonders in my deck, but I also run a lot of mana rocks and mana dorks. Im not running tribal and mostly likely never will with Zacama. I have my reasons, but thats not to say Dino tribal is a poor way to go, just not my thing. That being said, I can understand not wanting to add Odric for the non-Dino reason, so dont add him, but add Concerted Effort which does about the same as Odric except its an enchantment and wont pull away from your theme. Certainly take a look at my deck if you want some ideas. Its been a blast to play him and everyone finds him to be the biggest threat.

Onlytruereject i'll take that Concerted Effort, thank you for that. I had no idea it existed until you said something. Looking back at Odric, Lunarch Marshal I can see the obvious similarities, but also the minor differences between the two still make Concerted Effort a viable choice. Odric's indestructibility (When Zetalpa, Primal Dawn is in play) can easily be out maneuvered during a player's main phases...so I don't feel like i'm really missing out on that ability. Again, great suggestion!

Not a problem mate. I dont run it as I feel Odric is slightly better and offers a few other things that the enchantment dont, like haste. But its still pretty good still the same.