Etali, Primal ConquerorEtali, Primal Conqueror | Art by Ryan Pancoast

Do you like giant Dinosaurs? Do you like stealing your opponents' decks and assembling wins with other people's cards? And how do you feel about the number seven — do you think you can count that much mana by turn two pretty reliably?

Well folks, may I introduce you to cEDH's best Dinosaur: Etali, Primal ConquerorEtali, Primal Conqueror.

What Does Etali, Primal ConquerorEtali, Primal Conqueror Do?

Coming in at a whopping , Etali is a legendary 7/7 Elder Dinosaur creature with trample, the activated ability ": Transform Etali. Activate only as a sorcery," and the cEDH-defining triggered ability "When Etali, Primal Conqueror enters the battlefield, each player exiles cards from the top of their library until they exile a nonland card. You may cast any number of spells from among nonland cards exiled this way without paying their mana costs."

As for that transformation ability I mentioned earlier, Etali's back face is Etali, Primal Sickness — a legendary 11/11 Phyrexian Elder Dinosaur creature with trample, indestructible, and "Whenever Etali, Primal Sickness deals combat damage to a player, they get that many poison counters."

Alrighty, so, what to do with Etali? Well, like I mentioned earlier, this commander all comes down to that devastating enters trigger. Free-casting four nonland cards in cEDH is anywhere from pretty solid to downright game winning, with wherever you wind up landing in between coming down to the luck of the draw. That said, red's catalogue of copy effects and rituals is more than enough to tilt things in your favor. So, let's get into it.

Key Cards for Etali, Primal ConquerorEtali, Primal Conqueror

Fast Mana

Starting things off, Etali is up there with the likes of RogSi in terms of how hungry this deck is for mana. Since this deck's win condition is effectively gated behind the command zone, all eyes are on casting Etali and casting it fast.

To that end, Etali players are jamming just about every possible piece of acceleration into deck lists: from eating through their own lands with the likes of Orcish LumberjackOrcish Lumberjack (or creatures a-la Infernal PlungeInfernal Plunge), to the biggest single-spell bursts of mana Magic has ever printed, thanks to GeosurgeGeosurge (which is an entire Etali's worth of mana right there), this deck boils down to counting to seven mana as quick as you can.

Clone Spells

So, you've cast Etali thanks to your deluge of mana. Now what? Well, nine times out of ten you'll be hoping to see a copy effect get exiled thanks to your Etali trigger, and as such this deck runs four dedicated copy spells à la Heat ShimmerHeat Shimmer and company, which you can use to chain into more and more Etali triggers.

Beyond the dedicated copy sorceries, there are also a handful of cards that'll get you more Etali triggers in other ways. Cursed MirrorCursed Mirror is a mana rock that you may have enter as a copy of Etali, while the sequence of sacrificing Etali to cast Eldritch EvolutionEldritch Evolution, only to find Hellkite CourserHellkite Courser will wind up with you putting Etali back into play off of the Courser's enters-trigger.

Similarly, sacrificing Etali to MetamorphosisMetamorphosis will get you all but one mana necessary to recast Etali from the command zone. All this to say, the odds are actually pretty decent you'll hit some sort of copy effect off your initial Etali trigger — or a tutor from an opponent's deck so you can dig for a copy spell yourself.

How Does Etali, Primal ConquerorEtali, Primal Conqueror Win?

Theft

The classic combo of Food ChainFood Chain and Squee, the ImmortalSquee, the Immortal looks just short of tailor-made for this deck: Use Food Chain to exile Squee, adding one mana more than Squee's mana cost. Recast Squee from exile, netting you one mana (which can only be spent on creature spells, mind you).

Rinse and repeat exiling and casting Squee, gaining an arbitrarily large amount of mana in the process. Then, swap out Squee for Etali: cast Etali, get an enters-trigger, exile Etali to Food Chain (sending Etali to the command zone), and you know the rest. You'll exile each card in all players' libraries, giving you access to cast as many of those cards as you want.

Dualcaster Combo

Secondarily, this deck is already on so many copy spells (quite literally all of them) that it's essentially impossible to justify not running Dualcaster MageDualcaster Mage. Simply cast any copy spell (on your turn, pre-combat), then flash in Dualcaster MageDualcaster Mage.

Dualcaster Mage will enter, copy the copy spell, which you can then redirect to target your newly entered Dualcaster. The token-copy will enter, copy the copy spell that's still on the stack, and from that point you can continue the loop, creating as many hasty 2/2 creatures as you need to swing in for lethal.

Etali, Primal ConquerorEtali, Primal Conqueror cEDH Deck List

Wrap Up

Etali is an exciting, aggressive cEDH deck that takes a different approach to turbo — risking it all not on digging for Ad NauseamAd Nauseam or finding a flash enabler for your NecropotenceNecropotence, but on a big old Dinosaur staring down your opponents right from the command zone.