Wondering what people other than myself think about this deck!

[BackPack783]

https://deckstats.net/decks/101031/923475-zacama-dino-commander

I was wondering your guys' genuine opinion of this deck. Be as harsh as you can be, but please make it constructive. I am relatively new to Commander and this was my first crack at an EDH deck!

Thank you all!

[ApothecaryGeist]

Welcome to the Commander format!!  It is my favorite.

The first thing I look at in a Commander deck is the mana base.  Yours is pretty good.  It's actually fairly heavy on lands.  Most run 34-38.  Yours is a bit high.  But your commander does cost 9 mana. 

I recommend 6-10 non-land sources of mana/ramp in a deck.  I forget how many I counted now, I think it was 8.  Prophetic Prism does not count, as that just fixes mana color, it does not add mana to your pool.  Growing Rites of Itlimoc also does not count, as that does nothing for your mana base until it transforms.  8 mana rocks/dorks is good.   A lot of your mana ramp is in the form of creatures.  Creature mana is very fragile in Commander.  The format is full of spot removal and board wipes.  When your commander costs 9 mana, you do not want your mana base to be so fragile.  I would recommend more mana in the form of artifact mana rocks or ramp spells ... Sol Ring, Thran Dynamo, the signets, Fellwar Stone, Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Rampant Growth.  Anything like those.  Certainly dinosaurs producing mana and/or reducing costs is great.  Don't loose those if you're going for dino tribal.

Are you going for dino tribal?  I like better Gishath as the commander for dino tribal?  helps to ramp more dinos onto the field.

What's up with Sun Sentinel.  Not a dino.  And doesn't really seem to be helping your deck at all.

Also what is the function of Shock in this deck?  If it is to enable enrage triggers, you may want to go with Dual Shot.  It won't kill the 2-toughness guys AND you'll get 2 triggers.  If the Shock is for removal, try Lightning Bolt for more damage.  Although I would just use Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile.

And that brings me to my final point ... you need some more creature removal.  You have plenty of things to pump your dinos.  But if your opponent gets an indestructible, unblockable, or otherwise tough to deal with threat then you are going to need ways to deal with it.  There are also lots of problematic enchantments and artifacts running around the format.  Green & white are the best colors to deal with them.  Red can also deal with pesky artifacts.  I usually like to run a minimum of 4 forms of spot removal and 2 wipes.  These could be removal for creatures, artifacts, or enchantments.  You need to be able to remove things.

Hope this Helps

Happy Brewing! 

[Halldor]

can u explain ur deck and read the pinned article for EDH decks.   


So far as i can see it's a basic dinosaur tribal with not much interaction otherwise. Just get ur dinos running and stampede over the enemies?

Therefore some questions for you:

What do u want to achieve with this deck? -Creature based combat? Control? is there any subtheme in this deck u want to push? Is it a fun deck or has it to be tournament legal?

I just overflew it and it seems like u just put the playable dinosaur into one deck, and added some ramp?
I personally like tribals but i do think u should consider running a subtheme to make it more fun and interacting.
With ZAcama u have a commander which gives u huge opportunities to run some combos

[BackPack783]

Welcome to the Commander format!!  It is my favorite.

The first thing I look at in a Commander deck is the mana base.  Yours is pretty good.  It's actually fairly heavy on lands.  Most run 34-38.  Yours is a bit high.  But your commander does cost 9 mana. 

I recommend 6-10 non-land sources of mana/ramp in a deck.  I forget how many I counted now, I think it was 8.  Prophetic Prism does not count, as that just fixes mana color, it does not add mana to your pool.  Growing Rites of Itlimoc also does not count, as that does nothing for your mana base until it transforms.  8 mana rocks/dorks is good.   A lot of your mana ramp is in the form of creatures.  Creature mana is very fragile in Commander.  The format is full of spot removal and board wipes.  When your commander costs 9 mana, you do not want your mana base to be so fragile.  I would recommend more mana in the form of artifact mana rocks or ramp spells ... Sol Ring, Thran Dynamo, the signets, Fellwar Stone, Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Rampant Growth.  Anything like those.  Certainly dinosaurs producing mana and/or reducing costs is great.  Don't loose those if you're going for dino tribal.

Are you going for dino tribal?  I like better Gishath as the commander for dino tribal?  helps to ramp more dinos onto the field.

What's up with Sun Sentinel.  Not a dino.  And doesn't really seem to be helping your deck at all.

Also what is the function of Shock in this deck?  If it is to enable enrage triggers, you may want to go with Dual Shot.  It won't kill the 2-toughness guys AND you'll get 2 triggers.  If the Shock is for removal, try Lightning Bolt for more damage.  Although I would just use Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile.

And that brings me to my final point ... you need some more creature removal.  You have plenty of things to pump your dinos.  But if your opponent gets an indestructible, unblockable, or otherwise tough to deal with threat then you are going to need ways to deal with it.  There are also lots of problematic enchantments and artifacts running around the format.  Green & white are the best colors to deal with them.  Red can also deal with pesky artifacts.  I usually like to run a minimum of 4 forms of spot removal and 2 wipes.  These could be removal for creatures, artifacts, or enchantments.  You need to be able to remove things.

Hope this Helps

Happy Brewing! 

Thank you so much for your input! I see what your saying with needing more mana rocks, I’ve been meaning to get a few but haven’t had time. I really liked the input on removal, and will switch out shock for a dual shot. I see the problem needing to add artifact/ enchantment removal, so that will happen.
Thank you!

[Mostlynotgay]

Hiya!  Welcome to Commander.  Get comfortable, your game might take a while XD. 

If I could offer a suggestion, the most helpful tool I've found for commander deck building is edhrec.com.  I know, I don't usually like posting links to other mtg deck sites on here, but deckstats actually has an "EDH Suggestions" tab which uses edhrec, and edhrec has buttons that link back to deckstats. 

EDHrec is a compilation of, essentially, all of the edh decs.  so you type in your commander in the search box, and it will give you a pretty thorough, yet easy to understand, breakdown of the deck's average.  so for instance if we type in Zacama, Primal Calamity, we see that he's the commander in 107 decks.  land breakdown, color breakdown, links to articles mentioning him, and a list of the most-popular/most-common cards played in decks with him as the commander.  It's a really helpful tool. 

[Soren841]

EDHREC pull from here, Mtggoldfish and tapped out. At least half the Yidris decks listed are all mine

[Soren841]

Anyways here's my Zacama deck
Deck: Zacama EDH

[WWolfe]

http://manabasecrafter.com/

This site may also help you with your mana base by showing lands of all the different color combos in your commander.

[ladof]

As fun as Zacama is, Gishath is probably going to be the superior general. Dino EDH is a fun deck, though.