Commander Deck Tech - Indoraptor, the Perfect Hybrid

Alongside Lost Caverns of Ixalan, we also got some cards inspired by the Jurassic Park franchise in a "mini set" called Jurassic World Collection. In it, there were several great cards for Commander, but the main features are the new commanders that came in this set.

The card we chose to feature in this Commander deck tech was Indoraptor, the Perfect Hybrid, in a Dragon's Approach deck focused on the ability this fascinating Dinosaur brings!

Indoraptor, the Perfect Hybrid is in the Jund color combination. We'll focus on its Enrage ability, triggering it as many times as we can to deal damage to our opponents directly. Indoraptor also counts with the "Bloodthirst" ability, which pushes us to a Dragon's Approach sub-theme to grow its power considerably when we trigger Enrage.

This list doesn't specifically have a budget. Later on, we'll show you all a cheaper list, for those of you who are on a tight budget, but it will be focused on other cards, and not Dragon's Approach. The first, more expensive list can win through direct damage through other cards besides the commander, or direct combat damage, with the 21 damage coming from the commander themselves.

Important Lands

Before we discuss accelerators, we have, as a highlight, these 3 lands: Rogue's Passage and Kessig Wolf Run for evasion and to guarantee at least one death through combat damage, and Witch's Clinic to try and guarantee some support during the game. After all, considering our commander can grow its power significantly, it is just fitting to give it some Lifelink to guarantee a bit more safety.

Accelerators

We use just a few artifacts, but we have the essential ones: Sol Ring, Arcane Signet and Thought Vessel. This last one, even though it is somewhat weird, is necessary, considering we'll use card draw resources that are linked to the target creature's power or similar. Not losing resources to the graveyard is a must; and hence, we use Thought Vessel.

Now, moving on to Mana Dorks and similar, we have Birds of Paradise, Ignoble Hierarch and, to reduce costs, Goblin Anarchomancer. We use just a few of them as well, but only the ones that interest us.

Birds of Paradise and Ignoble Hierarch will always be welcome on the first few turns to create mana fast, just like Goblin Anarchomancer will be welcome to reduce our spells' cost. This is quite useful, as this deck brings a Dragon's Approach sub-theme.

Finally, we have the classic ramp cards: Farseek, Nature's Lore and Three Visits on turn 2, to look for Ziatora's Proving Ground, shock lands or other non-basic lands, and, on turn 3, we have Cultivate and Kodama's Reach, which are essential.

As this deck's broad mana cost isn't that high, these cards are enough as your essential ramp cards.

Triggering the Commander and Miscellaneous

We use some equipment cards both to protect our commander and also not lose it when you trigger Enrage. They are Swiftfoot Boots, Mithril Coat and Darksteel Plate.

Even though it is Indestructible, it still takes damage, consequently triggering its ability, so it is interesting to use these cards to keep it on the board for as long as possible.

Speaking of triggering our commander, we have a few cards to do this efficiently: Pestilence, Pyrohemia, Grapeshot. I'll give Rile an honorable mention, considering it gives us enough evasion to guarantee a kill.

Pestilence and Pyrohemia have the same role in this list: both clearing the board and triggering Enrage as many times as possible. Thanks to several cards that will still be mentioned, it is possible to play several spells on the same turn, which makes using Grapeshot viable, hoping to get a high number on its Storm count.

Finally, we have a few miscellaneous cards: Roaming Throne so Indoraptor triggers Enrage twice for each damage point it takes, Chandra's Ignition to try and end the game or even clear the board efficiently, The Skullspore Nexus to double Indoraptor's power and also take advantage of it if it dies, and lastly Flame Rift, which can make your Bloodthirst give 12 +1/+1 counters to Indoraptor for just 2 mana.

Drawing Cards

As mentioned before, we have our card draw sources. All of them check a creature's power in some way, be it sacrificing the creature or just checking the highest power among creatures. Momentous Fall, Greater Good and Life's Legacy demand the creature to die, so it is important to know when we can kill our commander to have more cards in hand.

As for Rishkar's Expertise and Return of the Wildspeaker, they don't have this requirement, so they are a bit safer.

Dragon's Approach, Dragons and Other Interactions

We mentioned before that this deck is centered around Dragon's Approach, so we have 22 in total. To support this sorcery, we use the following cards: Locket of Yesterdays and Ruby Medallion to reduce their total cost, and Secret Salvage to return all Dragon's Approaches from the graveyard to your hand and use them all again, this way dealing even more damage to your opponents.

Obviously, as we use Dragon's Approach, we couldn't not use Dragons. So, we selected Backdraft Hellkite, to have recursion similar to Secret Salvage, Knollspine Dragon to draw cards, Hoarding Broodlord to look for any card you need to finish the game or deal with something problematic, and last, but not least, Ziatora, the Incinerator, which can serve as a finisher when you sacrifice an Indoraptor with enough power to kill an opponent.

Answers and Miscellaneous

Of course, we couldn't forget to use answers to deal with what our opponents can do. After all, every deck needs answers nowadays, even if just a few.

With that in mind, we use, as removals, Beast Within, Assassin's Trophy, Chaos Warp and Rakdos Charm, which also have other very efficient functionalities and can be a great help.

As defensive recursion, we have Heroic Intervention, Rhythm of the Wild to avoid counters, and Bala Ged Recovery both as a land and as a sorcery. Finally, we have Blasphemous Act as global removal, Fiery Confluence as removal and also as a possible trigger to Indoraptor's Enrage, and Jeska's Will, which is good in general against Red decks that have a low-cost commander, like ours.

Even though we don't use Dragon's Approach in this budget version, we try to keep the essence of what this commander does. This version still focuses on its Enrage, but it also brings other alternatives to deal damage to all opponents, and grow Indoraptor.

This Jurassic Park mini set brought great new cards for this format. We can take advantage of most of them, not only in Dinosaur-themed decks, but also in various other archetypes. We can even expect that a certain variety of cards, from this mini-set, even, will become staples, and will be very popular in Commander.

Did you like this list? Would you do it differently? Would you try to use Obosh as a Companion? Tell us your thoughts!