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.
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.