Commander Deck Tech - Ellie and Alan, Paleontologists

Today, we have another one of the cool commanders that Jurassic World gave to Commander: Ellie and Alan, Paleontologists. We'll dig up fossils straight from our graveyard to the battlefield with Discover!

In this list, we focused on creatures with Cycling, self-mill, and also on always using our commander's, Ellie and Alan, Paleontologists, ability.

Discover is an upgraded Cascade that can place the card in question in your hand if you don't want to cast it. This deck's idea is to try and activate the highest number of Discover possible in the same turn to create a big board, and then finish your opponents.

The Bant color combination isn't the best for the self-mill mechanic, but that doesn't mean this deck isn't viable - we have several interesting pieces and good cards to win the game in style.

At the end of this article, we'll show you a budget list with the same idea of creatures with Cycling. Some interesting cards from the original list also remained. This deck wins, most times, through combat damage, but we also have other win conditions.

Accelerators

We use just a few accelerators in this list because we decided to only keep the basic ones: Sol Ring and Arcane Signet as mana rocks, and Farseek, Three Visits, Nature's Lore, Cultivate and Kodama's Reach as sorceries. This deck draws many cards, so it is important to always have a land drop in your hands, besides the specific land Cyclings.

Feeding the Graveyard

Our commander depends entirely on our graveyard, so, besides the Cycling sources we use, we need secondary sources. Considering this, we initially used Fluctuator to lower Cycling costs and fill the graveyard more easily.

We have two cards with Dredge, which works really well with Cycling - if the Dredge card is in your graveyard, and we use Cycling, we'll return the Dredge card to our hand instead of drawing a card, milling the number of cards indicated by Dredge. These cards are Golgari Grave-Troll and Life from the Loam. Golgari Grave-Troll can fill the graveyard significantly thanks to its Dredge 6, and Life from the Loam recovers the lands you mill, which will help us always have a land drop available.

As a source of loot, we use Magus of the Bazaar, Shorikai, Genesis Engine, which also creates blockers, Matzalantli, the Great Door, which can become The Core and create a lot of mana, Collector's Vault, which also creates mana besides card draw, and Frantic Search, which is basically a free spell.

We also use a few cards to feed the graveyard more aggressively, such as Windfall and Altar of Dementia, both to save our creatures from possibly being exiled by sacrificing them instead, and to self-mill or even mill opponents. It is also important for a possible "combo" included in this deck.

Finally, we have Fauna Shaman to search for cards that will be mentioned later on in this article, and Argentum Masticore, which is useful to remove your opponent's problematic permanents and feed the graveyard with high-cost creatures.

Fossils

These cards are this deck's fuel: huge creatures for you to set up a huge Discover. Starting with creatures with Cycling, we have Eagles of the North, Titanoth Rex, Generous Ent, Greater Sandwurm, Jungle Weaver, Krosan Tusker, which, on top of it all, also ramps a land through its Cycling, Marauding Brinefang, Nurturing Bristleback and Striped Riverwinder.

We also have huge creatures which are, indeed, fuel, and basically serve to fill the graveyard, such as Naya Soulbeast, Ghalta and Mavren, Thrasta, Tempest's Roar, Ghalta, Primal Hunger and Zetalpa, Primal Dawn.

Not that it is impossible to use them in certain moments, but, at first, they are in this list to create a reasonably sized Discover. It is interesting to analyze the situation in which you need one creature to be in the graveyard or in the battlefield. It is ironic that most of these creatures are Dinosaurs.

Finally, we have creatures that either feed the graveyard, or have some functionality: Wonder, to give our creatures evasion with Flying. Mulldrifter to draw cards, and Waker of Waves, which allows us to select cards and also feeds the graveyard. Colossal Skyturtle, to return essential cards from the graveyard to your hand, and Nezahal, Primal Tide, both to fill your hand with the non-creature spells your opponents cast and to feed the graveyard due to its ability to discard three cards, saving it from some enemy removal.

Interactions with the Commander

These are some of the critical pieces that work well alongside our commander. Let's start with Chakram Retriever: this cute dog allows us to basically cast our entire deck while we have fuel in the graveyard.

Chakram Retriever untaps a creature any time a spell is cast, and Discover is nothing more nothing less than a "cast". So, as long as we have creatures in the graveyard, we have basically a "semi-loop of castings". It would be broken only if the card went to your hand, but nothing that casting another spell from your hand doesn't solve, so we can restart this semi-loop.

That is why Altar of Dementia is so important; precisely to provide this fuel we need when sacrificing a creature to grow the number of cards in the graveyard and use Ellie and Alan's Discover again.

Considering how many times we can cast something, we use Aetherflux Reservoir as a possible win condition because we can gain a lot of health and can also kill opponents with its activated ability that deals 50 damage. We also have Hullbreaker Horror to return all non-land permanents to our opponents' hands and remove everything out of our way. Like so, we will try to cast as many creatures possible to end the game in a single blow, using Concordant Crossroads or Crashing Drawbridge to give Haste to the creatures that entered the battlefield on that turn.

It is possible to cast several cards multiple times with Intruder Alarm as well. To help this attack go through, we have Goring Ceratops to give Double Strike to our creatures, and, to increase even more how many times we cast, we have the option of giving Cascade to spells that cost 6 or more with Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty.

To help our commander and activate it as soon as possible, we use Swiftfoot Boots, Lightning Greaves and Thousand-Year Elixir. To untap it and also use Ellie and Alan's Discover again, we also use Vizier of Tumbling Sands and Kiora's Follower. Finally, the only card we don't want to use as fuel is Herald of the Forgotten, which Reanimates all our Cycling creatures at once. It's worth noting that Herald of the Forgotten works if it happens to pop up from a Discover effect.

Answers and Other Interactions

We have a few answers to deal with problems that disrupt our game strategy, such as a Rest in Peace or a Leyline of the Void and similar, for instance.

As a result, we use An Offer you Can't Refuse, Arcane Denial and Dovin's Veto as low-cost counters to catch our opponents off guard and remove only the essential.

As target removal for creatures, we have Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares, and to remove cards in general, we have Endless Detour.

As a global removal, we use only Supreme Verdict, and, to remove multiple elements at once, we have Cyclonic Rift.

To recover cards we lost that can't be used as fuel, we use Bala Ged Recovery, which allows us to recover something essential that has been lost or milled, and Splendid Reclamation, to recover all lands that were milled.

Finally, to draw cards, we use Greater Good, which can draw several cards considering the power of our creatures, and can also feed the graveyard by discarding 3 cards. We also have Monster Manual as an emergency lever to have big creatures on the battlefield. Its Adventure side, Zoological Study, is also quite useful, considering this deck's theme.

We kept the same original idea, and even the same Intruder Alarm Chakram Retriever interactions to cast several spells while you have creatures in the graveyard. At the same time we changed a lot, this deck still has the same goal of using Cycling cards and similar.

Bant is well out of my comfort zone, but working with this commander was quite peculiar, considering it has an ability that it is similar to Cascade. This deck has a lot of potential, and, even though it isn't the strongest deck of all time, it seems to be a very fun list to play.

Would you play this deck? Would you use more combos? Would you swap out its theme? Comment down below!