Commander Deck Tech: Owen Grady and Blue, Loyal Raptor

Without a question, my favorite MTG color combination is Temur. Including Blue, Red and Green, this combination is named after Tarkir, where the Temur frontier was known for using the wild brutality Red and Green offer, but in a more complex way, thanks to Blue. In Magic's world, Temur can swap between a reactive, controlling game style, and an aggressive, damage-focused game style, depending on what your match needs, and it is an extremely versatile and nuanced color combination.

Ever since I started playing Temur decks, this is the color combination I use the most, and the one that I have most fun with. Luckily for me, I found a pair of Universes Beyond - Jurassic Park commanders that are very interesting and can use these colors well; Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer and Blue, Loyal Raptor, the commanders that star in today's deck tech!

In this deck, we'll use two commanders that have Partner, which means, they can coexist in the command zone. They represent a duo that starred in the "Jurassic World" movie: Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer, and Blue, Loyal Raptor.

Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer is a red and green commander whose primary focus is giving counters to Dinosaurs. By tapping this card, we can add a Menace, Trample, Reach, or Haste counter on the target Dinosaur.

Unfortunately, we can only use this ability at sorcery speed, so it's useless to wait for our opponent to attack with a Flying creature to only then give Reach to one of our Dinosaurs, or wait until they mess up a block to give Trample to one of our dinos. However, this ability, even if it is restricted to a certain card speed, has a beautiful synergy with our other commander.

Just like in the movie, this girl is a pure joy on the battlefield. Blue, Loyal Raptor will be the main target of the counters we create with Owen because her ability tells us this: each Dinosaur we control will enter the battlefield with a copy of each counter type on Blue.

It's important to stress that these counters don't need to come from Owen necessarily, so we can copy +1/+1 counters, Flying counters, Indestructible counters, and many others. Another important rule that deserves our attention is that we copy only each type of counter, which means, if our Dinosaur commander has five +1/+1 counters, the other Dinosaurs that enter the battlefield later on will only have one +1/+1 counter, and not five. We must also remember that negative counters, such as -1/-1 and Stun counters, will also be copied.

Even then, this duo works well with each other, and Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer will give Blue, Loyal Raptor, as well as all other dinos that go on the board after she does, several advantages.

We'll finally discuss the deck itself. As you can imagine, we built a Dinosaur tribal deck with Blue, Red, and Green, which can really take advantage of the several counters Owen and Blue will give us. We'll use both notable Dinosaurs from the MTG universe and other Dinosaurs from the Jurassic Park set.

The list we'll discuss will be the one below, which is based on the list created by the player Manollin:

Just like your 4-year-old little cousin, this deck really likes dinosaurs, and they are most of the creatures we included; the other creatures in this list support them or other creatures in some way.

Thrashing Brontodon is precisely the type of Dinosaur this deck wants. It goes on the board early on, has a good body, and has a relevant ability in most EDH matches at any point in the game. Another example like it is Scytheclaw Raptor, which may be a sort of tax for opponents that can use instant speed really well.

Scion of Calamity is another notable card because it works like Thrashing Brontodon, but on a level that is quite higher in terms of quality and excellence. That being said, it is impossible to discuss excellence and quality without listing Bonehoard Dracosaur in this deck, considering it is one of the best Lost Caverns of Ixalan cards in any format it is available. In Commander, it creates several resources for red decks by exiling cards that can be played as an extension of your hand, all that while it creates tokens according to what you exiled.

Wayward Swordtooth (known by many as Azusasaur, a reference to Azusa, Lost but Seeking), Topiary Stomper, and Ranging Raptors will be your main Dinosaurs, and will increase your number of lands drastically; with them, you'll play more of your giant scaly creatures throughout your match.

By the way, if you need even more ramp, Azusa itself is in this deck, besides other spells and artifacts that work with this mechanic, which will improve your game rhythm significantly.

My favorite Dinosaur in this deck is, without a question, Palani's Hatcher. Apart from the fact I really enjoy the concept of a "nurse" Dinosaur that takes care of other babies and sits on eggs, I consider its effect to be incredibly strong, considering it creates tokens and uses these eggs to give life to new Dinosaurs.

On that same thought, I decided to add Dinosaur Egg, which, despite not being one of the tokens that Palani's Hatcher creates, can be sacrificed to activate its effect, and trigger the abilities in both of these cards.

A card that doesn't work with our Dinosaur theme and is incredibly interesting to me, without a question, is Bigger on the Inside. This enchantment not only provides us a lot of mana, but also helps our deck's flow by giving Cascade to the next spell we play. This mechanic significantly boosts our game rhythm when combined with Dinosaurs, which are an expensive creature type, and makes any Dinosaur with Cascade a huge value bomb, considering it creates 2-for-1 situations that are extremely advantageous for us each round.

Still discussing Doctor Who cards, The Thirteenth Doctor and Danny Pink bring, to our board, an important synergy with the counters that Blue, Loyal Raptor brings to our Dinosaurs. Danny Pink draws us cards through our creatures with counters, and The Thirteenth Doctor untaps them at the end of our turn, which gives them some sort of "pseudo-Vigilance".

And, I can't lie, I loved adding a Laser Screwdriver to this deck because both Screwdrivers can work with several different abilities.

Additionally, we have several other support cards that work with the Dinosaurs in this deck, such as, for instance, Ixalli's Lorekeeper, a 1-drop that can create mana of any color, so your Dinosaurs can go on the board earlier and activate their abilities more often.

This also applies to Otepec Huntmaster, which lowers the cost of your Dinosaurs and gives them Haste.

Drover of the Mighty is another card that helps our best Dinosaurs go on the board early on, but it can also be an efficient 3/3 body towards the end of the game.

Enchantments like Descendants Path also go well in this deck because they help our Dinosaurs find other Dinosaurs, considering it casts cards with this type for free from the top of your library.

Rhythm of the Wild protects our creatures from cards like Counterspell, buffs them with counters, or allows us to set up decisive attacks with Haste. Garruk's Uprising gives Trample to all our creatures and helps us draw more cards constantly. So, it gets our deck running and offers us more choices as the game goes on.

Finally, as we're dealing with "hyper-aggressive" decks, with Red and Green, a card like Xenagos, God of Revels makes a lot of sense, considering it grows our creatures, which are already big, and makes them ever bigger and ready for combat as soon as they enter the battlefield.

This deck uses several expensive cards that can easily add up to an unsavory price when we calculate the price of the entire list. Therefore, we offer the readers of this article a viable version of this same deck, only cheaper and more accessible, without compromising your results and competitiveness on the board.

However, notice that both Blue, Loyal Raptor and Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer are the most inaccessible cards because they only come in the most expensive versions of Lost Caverns of Ixalan boosters. So, they are still somewhat expensive and represent a good portion of the budget we use for both decks.

My friends, I loved this deck. Not only because of the synergy between these pieces, but also because of their game style. I really enjoy decks that work with a setup in which each card interacts with another, and create a big chain of effects. Additionally, Temur is an excellent color combination, and Blue can minimize the main flaws hyper-aggressive decks, such as Gruul decks, usually have.

Now, discussing another thing, I think it's curious how the character above is very different from its movie counterpart, and doesn't really look like the actor who represented it, Chris Pratt, apart from some very basic features. I had noticed this same phenomenon happening to Doctor Who cards, which show actors who have become a bit more famous, and once again I notice this in the card above.

The reasons can be a bit obvious, such as, for instance, copyright, but, still, it is interesting to think about.

Did you like this list? Do you prefer the budget version? Tell us your opinion in the comment section!

See you next time!