Best Dino Tribal Commander?

[RowanKeltizar]

Gishath, Sun's Avatar or Pantlaza, Sun-Favored?

I'm curious to know if anyone feels inspired to build dino tribal with the new commander when they didn't with Gishath or if they are outright swapping their dino leader.

[duducrash]

There is a Pantlaza, Sun-Favored im my play group and even not a great build is kill on sight. Have you played against Jodah, the Unifier its like that but without steroids. Will stomp weaker decks and can be built fo a high end casual powerlevel without much trouble.

[RowanKeltizar]

I've actually never played Jodah, but thats a good comparison. Lack of comments I guess means there aren't a ton of folks interested in dino tribal. Maybe too overdone at this point? I was thinking to write up a primer, but... there are so many new fun overpowered dinos!

Scion of Calamity
Hunting Velociraptor
Dinosaurs on a Spaceship
Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant
Wrathful Raptors
Flaming Tyrannosaurus
Bonehoard Dracosaur
Ravenous Tyrannosaurus

I got to play a game with Pantlaza at the helm. I REALLY like this commander. Costs a whopping 3 less than Gishath to cast. You get immediate benefit on ETB as well. I think this commander really solves the some major problems I had with Gishath:

1. struggling to be consistent = not enough card advantage. You needed a certain density of Dinos to make Gishaths trigger hit hard enough and there aren't enough dinos with card advantage. A lot of times if I didn't draw into the right cards I found find myself doing nothing at the table.

2. alleviating table hate towards my giant trampling beatstick. A lot of deck real estate were cards to protect Gishath and enchance his trigger (i.e. Aggravated Assault or Duelist's Heritage ) . It became more of a voltron deck than I had anticipated. It wasn't uncommon to spend 12mana to recast Because of the mana cost, it wasn't uncommon either to waste a whole turn to cast Gishath just to get him countered or removed immediately.

3. ramp isn't quite as crucial since Pantlaza basically allows you to circuvent mana costs or rather cast 2 spells for the price of one. And the way the deck is built, you likely are going to cast a dino to discover into a non-dino spell which is in my opinion far better. I was always loath to get a Gishath trigger and see all my ramp, draw, and removal go to the bottom of my library!

4. I found Gishath to be bit too linear aggro for my enjoyment. Pantlaza is perhaps more of a build around commander in some ways. I'm going to try a Hunting Grounds, Lurking Predators, Scroll Rack package. You can also blink dinos outside of your turn for more discover triggers, which means I will probably slot in stuff like Ephemerate or Eerie Interlude instead of Heroic Intervention or Boros Charm. I like when a commander points in another direction with these types of cards.

For all those reasons I really think Pantlaza is the better dino tribal commander, at least for me.

In my game though I did find myself missing Aggravated Assault. I ended up losing because one of my opponents was able to tap down all my dinos preventing me from killing him and preventing me from blocking the next turn.

[yeti1069]

I've actually never played Jodah, but thats a good comparison. Lack of comments I guess means there aren't a ton of folks interested in dino tribal. Maybe too overdone at this point?

Yeah. I'll say that I had a Gishath deck in Historic Brawl on Arena that I changed to Pantlaza, and had been entertaining the idea of getting the precon, but the deck is far too linear for me to bother with it as a commander deck. Certainly in Arena, Pantlaza is better, just for being a 5-drop with an ETB rather than an 8-drop that needs to attack your sole opponent holding removal. Pantlaza also has no real fail case, as you'll always get something to hand at least, whereas even with 25 or so dinos, Gishath can whiff. Pantlaza also not caring about what sort of combat conditions you're looking at is also a plus, I think. I've had plenty of games with other decks where a 7/6 trampler wasn't getting through, let alone putting through enough damage to make the trigger worthwhile.

[CommanderMaster999]

Well so far Gishath is still the top dog

But it will be a matter of time before we see more ub dinosaurs

(Heck maro mention he would have rather made dinosaurs a GUR tribe)

[RowanKeltizar]

There are at least 2 more dino tribal commanders:

Most notably we have the new Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer and Blue, Loyal Raptor. Skipping white means we miss out out on some of the best dinos, however U gives a bunch of really great interaction and card draw effects. We can also run Kalamax, the Stormsire and Nezahal, Primal Tide in the 99! There's Reflections of Littjara and Kindred Discovery I think this could be a pretty fun deck to build quite honestly.

Wayta, Trainer Prodigy - I think if we got a bunch more enrage commanders, this would be powerful, but as is not that viable