Gishath, Sun's AvatarGishath, Sun's Avatar | Art by Zach Stella

As Jurassic Park attempts to prove that “Life…finds a way” to revitalize its flailing franchise, the Dinosaur creature type is alive and thriving in Magic.

Recently, it seems as though Dinosaurs have taken up the mantle of “generic large green creature” previously held by Wurms and Beasts. Other colors have Dragons, Demons, Angels, and sea monsters, but green has struggled a bit (in spite of its reputation in Commander) to develop an iconic top-end type of its own.

Sure, it has little guys like Elves, but, for game-ending threats, it often finds itself bleeding into other colors. All that changed, however, when the game visited Ixalan for the first time.

In Ixalan, Dinosaurs became an officially-supported type. Some Dinosaurs already existed and were errata-ed to be Dinosaurs from types like Beasts, but Dinos really didn’t exist until then. A subsequent visit to Ixalan, along with mechanically-unique Jurassic Park cards, have fleshed out the creature type and given it a bit of an identity.

Dinos are typically big, strong, and tough, capable of enduring damage and even welcoming it. So today we're building a Dino deck, featuring one of the legends from Ixalan, Gishath, Sun's AvatarGishath, Sun's Avatar.

What Does Gishath, Sun's AvatarGishath, Sun's Avatar Do?

Put simply, Gishath eats everything. It chomps on life totals. It swallows blockers. It even eats removal spells like a champ.

And for eight mana, it ought to. For that seemingly steep price, we get a 7/6 with vigilance, trample, and haste. That huge body comes down swinging, can attack and block profitably, and can’t be chump-blocked. All of this with an ability that triggers whenever it connects.

And that ability is a doozy! When it connects, we reveal cards equal to the combat damage the opponent takes from the top of our library and put all of the Dinosaurs revealed this way onto the battlefield.

It’s worth noting that this ability triggers during the combat damage step. The combat phase has five steps: beginning of combat, declare attackers, declare blockers, combat damage, and end of combat, in that order. Since the combat damage step occurs after the declare attackers step, and the creatures do not enter tapped and attacking, the creatures Gishath puts onto the battlefield cannot attack during the combat step they were created, even if they have haste.

While the timing concern may make it seem like granting haste to those creatures is a waste of time, additional combat steps and generally adding haste to curve-toppers is actually vital to giving the deck its identity.

For a while, Gishath stood alone as the apex predator at the top of the Dinosaur food chain. But Pantlaza, Sun-FavoredPantlaza, Sun-Favored emerged onto the scene a couple of years ago and has narrowly eclipsed its predecessor in popularity. Apparently, being the Avatar of the Sun is nothing compared to earning its favor!

Pantlaza is a 4/4 for five mana, so it's more aggressively-costed and comes down earlier than Gishath. It has an ability that is similar to cascade, and it grants that to Dinosaurs that enter after it. Like Giott last week, Pantlaza is a card advantage engine that doesn't require anything beyond what we're already doing: casting Dinosaurs.

So why would we go with Gishath over Pantlaza? It comes down to explosive potential. Pantlaza is a great commander. It synergizes well with the high mana curve-toppers and tendency towards escalation of Dinosaurs. It gives the deck inevitability by churning out card advantage in the form of multiple Dinosaurs entering the battlefield per turn.

But it doesn’t have the excitement of Gishath’s ability, and it will often fail to find worthwhile cards to discover. Gishath, even if blocked, will typically flip more cards for a higher total mana value than Pantlaza. It’s a tough call, but Gishath’s ability to put Dinosaurs into play regardless of mana value makes the deck operate more like a ramp or combo deck and less like a reskinned midrange deck.

Key Cards for Gishath, Sun's AvatarGishath, Sun's Avatar

While the creatures flipped off of Gishath can’t attack the same turn without being granted haste and having additional combats, we still want to grant our creatures haste.

Why is haste so important? Because the later games go, the less likely it is that our threats will live through a full table rotation. As odd as it may sound, Gishath’s ability is a closer. It’s there to seal the game off in a flurry of scales, feathers, claws, and fangs.

As an eight-mana spell, quite a lot will have happened before it drops onto the table, and, if it’s the only threat on our board at that time, it may have some trouble finding an open target.

Cards like Rhythm of the WildRhythm of the Wild and Fires of YavimayaFires of Yavimaya, however, hit the board in the sweet spot between our ramp spells and our Dinosaurs. FervorFervor and Concordant CrossroadsConcordant Crossroads give that ability to everyone, which encourages players to attack each other and leaves them open to counterattacks.

All of these cards are low mana value and would be redundant if flipped off of a Pantlaza trigger, while Gishath can just put them on the bottom.

Speaking of fitting in under ramp, Dinosaurs have some powerful type-specific ramp spells, having been designed as big green monsters.

Otepec HuntmasterOtepec Huntmaster and Knight of the StampedeKnight of the Stampede are a couple of the ways we have to reduce the cost of Dinosaurs, including our commander, enabling the beatdown plan whether it's out or not. And therein lies the necessity of the haste enablers: We can’t count on our commander being out and need to be able to assume the aggressor role before it lands and in between times it's been removed.

Eight mana is a lot to start, and upwards of 10 to 12 mana in subsequent turns means we’ll likely be tapping out to cast it.

So, what do we do if Gishath gets removed? We try to load up our hand to keep the cards flowing!

Greater GoodGreater Good is one of the best cards to do this, as we can sac our commander in response to the removal to draw cards equal to its power and then discard three cards, which will more than likely include some number of lands.

The secret sauce of the deck, however, and a big reason we don’t want to be discovering with Pantlaza, is Primal SurgePrimal Surge. This sorcery flips permanents off of the top of the library until the whole thing is on the battlefield or a non-permanent is flipped. With Primal SurgePrimal Surge being the only non-permanent in the deck and with all of the haste enablers, Surge is essentially a ten-mana “I win the game” spell.

Like with most decks in this series, the initial build is light on removal and non-basic lands. Our removal is built into our creature package, with Wakening Sun's AvatarWakening Sun's Avatar acting as a controllable board wipe and Thrashing BrontodonThrashing Brontodon helping to remove problem permanents.

Our basic lands lean green because green pips are the most common among our spells and because we need green to open up our ramp and fixing roles, so green needs to be the first color we play. If we were to include nonbasic lands, we would start with ones that produce green and at least one of our other colors, like Command TowerCommand Tower and Stomping GroundStomping Ground.

While we can’t use too many of them, one or two colorless utility lands, such as Kessig Wolf RunKessig Wolf Run, could help with the explosion. Targeting Gishath with Wolf Run can do a pretty effective simulation of Primal SurgePrimal Surge, although it’s a largely useless land early.

How Does This Gishath, Sun's AvatarGishath, Sun's Avatar Commander Deck Win?

This Gishath deck looks to ramp into large Dinosaurs, give them haste, and turn them sideways. We can draw lots of cards with all the power we put onto the battlefield, keeping the action flowing and the advantage bar growing.

Gishath, Sun's Avatar Commander Deck List

Conclusion

The more recognizable and powerful Dinosaurs are big green monsters, but there are also smaller utility creatures. We look to drop as many permanents onto the battlefield as quickly as we can and give them haste to end the game in a few big combats. Ramping into Primal SurgePrimal Surge gives us a ten mana “I win” button to go along with our explosive eight-mana commander.