Ravenous Tyrannosaurus | art by Raymond Swanland

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Welcome to...

Since as long as I can remember, I have always loved Jurassic Park, so when I saw that they were coming out with cards set in the world of Jurassic Park/World, I was over the moon. Now that the cards are here, let's not waste any more time and jump in. Hold on to your butts.

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Legendary Creatures

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Ellie and Alan, Paleontologists

Ellie and Alan, Paleontologists is one of the most unique Bant commanders to come out in a long while. They make use of the graveyard, and in doing so give you free spells from the top of your library, something no other commander in that specific color combination does. When building them, cards you’ve got to include are Intruder Alarm, creatures like Kiora's Follower, and instants and sorceries that untap your creatures to get the most value out of Ellie and Alan. They really want creatures in the graveyard, so having some self-mill with creatures like Hedron Crab will start filling it quickly. Exiling creatures and getting to discover, hopefully getting creatures onto the battlefield (to, say, trigger Intruder Alarm), could create a loop of value.

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Henry Wu, InGen Geneticist

The first out of two Sultai commanders on this list is Henry Wu, InGen Geneticist, a commander that benefits off of the exploitation of your creatures, and Zombies are the perfect creature type exploitation! Create your army of Zombies with synergistic Humans, like Ghoulcaller Gisa and Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver, and then enjoy all of your exploitative shenanigans. Sidisi, Undead Vizier is a great addition to this deck, as you’ll end up drawing a card, creating a Treasure. and tutoring if she exploits herself, as Henry doesn't care who exploited who as long it was a non-Human that got exploited. Most of the creatures with exploit are non-Humans, so if there aren't any other targets, they can always exploit themselves to gain you card advantage. Sultai has seen its fair share of graveyard synergies, so there are lots of pieces to choose from when building Henry Wu, InGen Geneticist, though Henry would be suited better as a commander than a piece in the 99.

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Ian Malcolm, Chaotician

Can we just pause for a sec and just embrace the word/moniker “Chaotician”? That not only is super flavorful, but very relevant to what this card does. Chaos decks are mostly bemoaned by playgroups everywhere, as they throw every other deck's plan right out the window. Ian Malcolm, Chaotician tips his toe into the chaos pool, giving everyone access to every one else's cards one at a time, and only if someone draws more than one card per turn, though if you stuff your Ian Malcolm deck with cards like Dictate of Kruphix, Howling Mine, and Temple Bell, you can reliably grow the pile of extra spells you can cast. Giving your opponents cards is dangerous, but if you're also drawing cards and taking away their cards, I’d say it’s a wash. As you're casting cards from exile, Mizzix, Replica Rider, Nalfeshnee, and Wild-Magic Sorcerer would be great additions for this commander and allow you to gain even more value off of your opponents' spells you cast. Ian Malcolm, Chaotician plays better as a commander rather than a card in the 99, though Nekusar, the Mindrazer wouldn't mind another way of whittling down your opponents' libraries and adding just a little bit of chaos.

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Indominus Rex, Alpha

Indominus Rex, Alpha was one of the first legendary creatures shown off from the Jurassic World set, and it definitely made a splash as a very powerful card. Being in Sultai, you’ll be able to ramp out quickly and fill your hand with creatures full of abilities, like Nighthawk Scavenger, Questing Beast, and Nightveil Predator. With plenty of mana and your hand full, you’ll be able to reap the rewards of Indominus Rex’s ability and discard only two or three cards and draw anywhere from five to seven! Indominus Rex, Alpha decks will look very similar to Rayami, First of the Fallen decks, as both are in Sultai colors and both care about lots of creatures with lots of keywords. The biggest difference is that Rayami wants those cards to die on the battlefield, so sacrifice outlets are important, whereas Indominus Rex wants those cards in your hand, which it can then easily refill with its own ability. Panharmonicon, Yarok, the Desecrated, and Doubling Season will double up the cards you draw, so they're definitely cards to play in this deck. To squeeze all of the value you can out of this big Dinosaur, flicker effects, like Deadeye Navigator, Essence Flux, and Ghostly Flicker, are great additions. Not only could it play Yarok, the Desecrated, but it would also work in the 99 of Yarok, as well as Muldrotha, the Gravetide or The Mimeoplasm.

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Indoraptor, the Perfect Hybrid

A perfect, bloodthirsty raptor, Indoraptor, the Perfect Hybrid only wants your opponents to suffer, and it has a psuedo-Boros Reckoner/Stuffy Doll effect to prove it. As a commander, effects like Pyrohemia, Pestilence, and the like can be used to trigger both of its abilities. This raptor loves to see the world burn, so some burn cards, like Lightning Bolt, Toralf, God of Fury, and any Earthquake clone, would do just fine. To take advantage of its need to see your opponents bleed, running other Bloodthirst-y cards, like Petrified Wood-Kin, Furyborn Hellkite, or some spectacle cards like Light Up the Stage, add some good support. You can’t say “bloodthirsty” more than Blood for the Blood God!. This deck wants to be mean, lean, and obscenely destructive; just make sure you have a Mithril Coat or a Darksteel Plate handy.

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Blue, Loyal Raptor//Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer

It just makes sense to do the only two partner with commanders together as they were meant to be. Let’s start with Blue, Loyal Raptor. Blue cares about counters and would be at home in decks with Perrie, the Pulverizer and Roalesk, Apex Hybrid. Keep in mind, in order to get full value out of Miss Blue, you'll need to be playing a good number of Dinosaurs. Blue does synergize quite nicely with Indominus Rex, Alpha, as Blue will just give ability counters to Indominus Rex as it enters, allowing you to draw more cards. As a commander by itself, Blue wants to play cards like Slippery Bogbonder, Agent's Toolkit, and all the other cards that you would find in a typical +1/+1 counter deck, as having all of your Dinosaurs come in bigger is never a bad thing.

Moving on over to Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer, at his base, Owen is a three-mana 3/2 that can fetch up Blue if Blue is in the deck. Running his own deck, Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer wants all of the Dinosaurs, as he wants to put all sorts of counters on them, albeit very slowly. Throw in a Fires of Yavimaya or a Rhythm of the Wild and he can do it a little bit faster. Giving the all-star Colossal Dreadmaw haste can be game-breaking, but that’s just chocolate sauce on an already perfect ice cream sundae. In the 99 of a deck is where Owen can do the most work. Throw him into a Zacama, Primal Calamity, Gishath, Sun's Avatar, or even the brand new Pantlaza, Sun-Favored, and he’ll play a support role of handing out counters like an usher at a theatre show.

Obviously these two were meant to be together, whether in a deck as part of the 99 or running their own Dinosaur show. Temur doesn’t have a lot of Dino-centric commanders, so this pair brings another option for those who really want to play with all six blue Dinosaurs and Keruga, the Macrosage.

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Everything Else!

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Don't Move

Holy conditional wrath, Batman! Don't Move is the cheaper sorcery version of Sunblast Angel. Even though it doesn’t give you a 4/5 flyer, it does (mostly) prevent you from being attacked, or your opponents from activating any tap abilities for the turn cycle. That restriction, mind you, does also apply to you. Decks that want this card are decks that already have better cards in their wrath slots; in saying that, though, there is a subtle control element to this card. Against decks that use their creatures for mana, or rely on tap abilities, this card can wipe their board and shut them off for a turn, and it’s not a small number of creatures that have relevant tap abilities. In conclusion, Don't Move’s bark is scarier than its bite, but when you get bit, it'll hurt.

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Cresting Mosasaurus

Other than the Doctor Who release, we haven’t seen emerge since Eldritch Moon! This is one of the six blue Dinosaurs I mentioned earlier, and it definitely makes a splash when it enters. If you cast it (hopefully for its emerge cost) you get to wash away all of the other non-Dinosaur creatures and open up the way for your Dinos to charge in. Unfortunately, due to its color and the fact that it is only really potent in full on Dinosaur decks, there are a limited number of commanders it would want to see play with. The aforementioned Blue, Loyal Raptor and Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer pairing would be a nice home, as would the apex beasts from Ikoria Illuna, Apex of Wishes and Vadrok, Apex of Thunder. An eight-mana 4/8 with no keywords isn’t anything special in today’s Magic, but the cheaper you can make this ancient beast, the bigger impact it’ll make when you cast it.

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Spitting Dilophosaurus

Oh boy, the scene that gave me nightmares as a child can now give me nightmares on the battlefield. Immediately, two commanders jump to mind: Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons and The Scorpion God, which, after looking, I found out they were the top two commanders for the -1/-1 counter theme, so, checks out. Spitting Dilophosaurus would be a fantastic addition to either of those two, being able to give a -1/-1 counter when it enters, then repeat that every time it attacks is just good value. Of course, being a 3/2 there's plenty that this dies to, and can be blocked by, but it has its own defensive mechanisms with those counters, which makes attacking a bit more palatable. An alternative Kulrath Knight, Spitting Dilophosaurus, has the potential to come down and be a game ender by making all of those -1/-1 counters really mean the end for your opponents.

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Hunting Velociraptor

Another Dino-centric card in Hunting Velociraptor, allowing you to play your Dinosaurs for super cheap. Now, this all hinges on the fact that you can get in there with a Dinosaur to set up an explosive second main phase; good thing a lot of Dinosaurs have trample. These raptors are a 3/2 for three mana, which is the same stat line as the Spitting Dilophosaurus, so the same rules apply here: great if you can get in, but the later the game goes on the harder it will be. Now, throw these raptors in a Zacama, Primal Calamity deck and you're cruising for a combo win. With a Temur Sabertooth out, and six or more mana, two of which are red and green, you can infinitely play and bounce Zacama, each time generating an additional mana, then it’s up to you what to do with that infinite mana.

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Life Finds a Way

Finding a way to grow your army one step at a time is the very nature of Life Finds a Way. Ghired, Conclave Exile, Esix, Fractal Bloom, and Anikthea, Hand of Erebos, would all make great use of this enchantment, copying tokens, copying tokens of other creatures, or turning this enchantment into a creature so that it could potentially start populate itself. Going through which commanders could really use this card, I stumbled upon what might be the best home for this card; Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm. Just when you thought that deck didn't need any more pieces.

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Savage Order

Oh sweet, a Dino-fied version of Natural Order! As opposed to only working for green creatures, for both the sacrifice and the tutor, this is able to get any Dinosaur(or any creature with a Maskwood Nexus effect), the only requirement is that the sacrificed creature has to have power four or greater. Which is not a high hill to climb, a lot of creatures, and heck even creature tokens, have four or more power. In Dinosaur-centric decks like Gishath, Sun's Avatar, you could use it to fetch up the brand new Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant to spill your hand full of creatures onto the battlefield, and create an instant army, or grab Etali, Primal Conqueror to get some free spells.

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Welcome to . . .

The Jurassic Park theme song hits hard whenever I look at this card, along with Richard Attenborough's voice welcoming me to the park. This Saga tells more than the story of the movie quite well, it's also just a good Saga. Let’s break this card down chapter by chapter. Immediately, for three mana you turn what you deem the biggest threats into 0/4 walls, already off to a good start. Of course, if they get rid of this card those creatures go back to normal, but we're gonna pretend for this review that they don't. We get to the second chapter and it gives us a little 3/3 Dinosaur with trample. But the last chapter is where we get the value for our time and mana. When it resolves, those creatures (and any other walls for that matter) get destroyed and the saga flips into a Dinosaur-specific Gaea's Cradle. If that’s all it was, it would be acceptable, but no, that’s not all it does, it gives you recursion, allowing you to escape (huge flavor win by the way) your Dinosaurs!

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Compy Swarm

Today in “how many pieces can Golgari/witherbloom (black/green) get that trigger when something dies”, may I introduce Compy Swarm. Albeit slow, this swarm of tiny Dinosaurs can get quite big quite fast if not dealt with. Math time! You play Compy Swarm, something dies, you now have two Compy Swarms. Next turn, something else dies, then you’d have four Compy Swarms, depending on how many survive. Next turn 8, and then 16, and so on and so on, you get the point. These aren’t a must have in decks, but Meren of Clan Nel Toth or Kresh the Bloodbraided could make use of the token(s) for sacrifice fodder. Like with Scute Swarm, Compy Swarm will have a great time in Mutate decks like Brokkos, Apex of Forever, Otrimi, the Ever-Playful, and Nethroi, Apex of Death. It may not fear man, but doesn’t mean we need to fear it, unless there’s a lot of them, then that’s kinda scary I guess.

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Grim Giganotosaurus

At its base, Grim Giganotosaurus is a 10/10 for seven mana, with only two colored pips, making it a bit easier to cast. Its Monstrosity ability, for 12 whole mana, turns it into a 20/20, which would be a total of 19 mana for a 20/20 creature that clears its own path through on the way to your opponent's face. Not terrible, not great, but not terrible! But, wait, there’s more! Its Monstrosity ability gets discounted for each creature your opponents control with power 4 or greater, so you could potentially pay a lot less for a 20/20 creature. The greater the threat your opponents present the greater the reward for playing and activating Grim Giganotosaurus. Getting rid of all creatures is one thing, but also trashing all mana rocks, and potentially other important artifacts is too powerful to ignore. This ability in a +1/+1 counter deck led by Skullbriar, the Walking Grave with a Grave Betrayal out is something that ends games.

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Permission Denied

When the Jurassic World cards were announced, I was wondering how they were going to present this scene. One of the most memorable scenes from the first movie, Permission Denied, will also be one of the most memorable counterspells for a long while after its release. Turning your opponents off of noncreature spells for the entire turn is huge, and putting a Negate on top of it is just salt in the wound. Players will probably feel as salty as Samuel L. Jackson’s character did in this scene. Not only does it get your one opponent who you theoretically countered, but it also shuts down all your other opponents from casting noncreature spells that turn. Want none of your spells to be countered by noncreature spells that turn? Easy, just counter your own spell with Permission Denied and watch as all of your opponents’ eyes glaze over knowing there's not a whole lot they can do, well, unless someone's got a Mystic Snake.

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Ravenous Tyrannosaurus

Jumping from one iconic scene, we leap and bound to another iconic scene. In this scene, our heroes are about to be feasted on, then, at the last minute, the Tyrannosaurus Rex leaps in and “saves” the heroes, though it was mostly to eat the other smaller dinosaurs, which this card embodies perfectly. Devour is always a risky ability, especially when the creature doesn’t immediately do something with the counters it has gained. The most imperative thing you are gonna want to do with this big Dino is make sure it gets haste. Wulfgar of Icewind Dale would love to see this in the 99 as he would double that attack trigger and potentially get two would-be blockers out of the way and deal your opponents damage to boot. In that very same deck, Toralf, God of Fury could see to it that that excess damage hits more targets.

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Swooping Pteranodon

This is mechanically one of the funniest black-bordered cards I have seen since Captain Rex Nebula. Unfortunately, there are only 17 Dinosaurs that have flying, plus three creatures with changeling and flying, so a total of 20, or 21 if you count Indominus Rex, Alpha, but I don’t, so 20 it is! That is all to say the odds of having Swooping Pteranodon with other flying Dinos is low, not zero, but low. Back to its ability, when it enters the battlefield, it “picks up” a creature, and then after you’re done with it, drops it on the “ground” by making a land deal three damage to it! A very funny visual mechanically speaking. A good majority of those flying Dinosaurs can go into either Akim, the Soaring Wind or Vadrok, Apex of Thunder, then you can also throw in a non-flying Dinosaur that makes flying dinosaurs, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. Swooping Pteranodon is a Dinosaur deck included first and foremost, but don’t sleep on it in “threaten” decks either, blink this a few times and you can do some serious damage.

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Dino DNA

Have you ever wanted a machine that just creates Colossal Dreadmaws with different hats/jobs and nothing else? Well I know I have and so have I got the perfect one mana artifact for you! Dino DNA takes whatever lame creature you had laying around in your graveyard and turns it into its most perfect form, its most colossal form. It does cost six mana per token, but that’s just the cost of greatness these days. Just grab Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy, or Zirda, the Dawnwaker and a Basalt Monolith and you’ve got yourself a ”Dreadmaw” factory. In all seriousness though, this is a very cheap costed artifact, with an ability that’s very good, allowing you to continually create copies of a creature. With the aforementioned ”Zirda”, that cost goes down to four mana! Diving deeper, with Mana Echoes on the battlefiled, the minute you get to six or more Dinosaurs (or four or more if we are using the last scenario), you can start infinitly creating copies. Now imagaine that with cards like Meteor Golem, Terror of the Peaks or even Gary! The biggest drawback is everything has to be at sorcery speed, but with enough set up, that shouldn’t be an issue.

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Jurassic Park!

There you have it, all of the Jurassic World cards in all of their glory. Overall, they nailed the flavor/function of the set. Some of these will definitely find a home in my Gishath, Sun's Avatar deck I am resurrecting. Others I am excited to try out in other decks or play them as a commander, looking at you Ian Malcolm, Chaotician. What do you think of the Jurassic World cards? Let us know down below, and if hadn’t already, go and check out the other reviews of Lost Caverns of Ixalan, and the flavor review of these very same Jurassic World cards. Until next time, and always remember, life always finds a way.