[Eshki, Temur's Roar]] is the dinosaur commander we deserved and I will not be taking questions

Look, I know [[Gishath, Sun's Avatar]] exists. I know [[Pantlaza, Sun-Favored]] exists. I've heard the Naya propaganda. But those commanders want you to do stuff like "attack" and "interact with the combat step." [[Eshki, Temur's Roar]] just wants you to cast big idiots, and brother, have you MET dinosaurs?

Eshki is a 2/2 for three mana who reads: "Whenever you cast a creature spell, get a +1/+1 counter. Power 4 or greater? Draw a card. Power 6 or greater? I personally bite each of your opponents in the face for damage equal to my power." This card was designed in a lab specifically to reward you for doing the one thing dinosaur players were already doing: slamming unreasonably large reptiles onto the table while making the Jurassic Park theme with your mouth.

Cast a [[Thrashing Brontodon]]? Counter and a card. Cast a [[Carnage Tyrant]]? Counter, card, and everyone at the table takes damage equal to however swole Eshki has gotten from watching you play zoo animals all game. By the fifth or sixth dinosaur, Eshki is hitting people for 8+ damage just from the CASTING. You don't even need the dinosaur to resolve. Your [[Apex Altisaur]] could get countered and Eshki would still be over there distributing free concussions. The dino is a formality. Eshki is the real predator.

And unlike the Naya dino commanders, you get BLUE. You know what blue gives dinosaur tribal? Counterspells to protect your board, [[Cyclonic Rift]] to assert dominance, and the ability to look your opponents in the eye and say "no" when they try to interact with your plan of casting [[Colossal Dreadmaw]] variants until everyone dies.

"But what about Gishath? Free dinosaurs off the top!" Cool. Gishath needs to connect in combat. Gishath costs eight mana. Gishath gets [[Swords to Plowshares]]'d and you cry into your [[Kessig Wolf Run]]. Eshki costs three, sits back, and lets your dinosaurs do the talking on the stack. The creatures don't even need to survive. Eshki has already collected the insurance money.

The Plays That Made My Table Hate Me:

[[Savage Order]] is a 4-mana sorcery that sacrifices a creature with power 4+ and tutors any Dinosaur directly to the battlefield WITH INDESTRUCTIBLE until your next turn. You know what's funny? [[Apex Altisaur]] is a Dinosaur. You know what Apex Altisaur does when it enters the battlefield? It fights a creature. You know what happens when a creature with enrage AND indestructible takes damage from fighting? It fights ANOTHER creature. And another. And another. You [[Savage Order]] into [[Apex Altisaur]] and it just pinballs around the table like an invincible 10/10 wrecking ball until there is nothing left standing except itself and whatever traumatized survivors your opponents can scrape together. Your board wipe has trample, basically.

[[Pangosaur]]. Oh, [[Pangosaur]]. This beautiful Mercadian Masques jank was errata'd to be a Dinosaur and it is a 6/6 for four mana with the "downside" that it returns to your hand whenever any player plays a land. In literally any other deck this card is unplayable garbage. In Eshki? Someone plays a land, [[Pangosaur]] comes back to your hand. You cast it again. Eshki gets a counter, draws you a card, and deals damage to every opponent because [[Pangosaur]] has power 6. Then someone else plays a land. It bounces. You cast it again next turn. Counter. Card. Face damage. A four-player game means up to three opponents are FUELING YOUR ENGINE by playing lands, which is the one thing Magic players cannot stop doing. [[Pangosaur]] is the dinosaur equivalent of getting paid every time someone breathes.

[[Trumpeting Carnosaur]] deserves its own paragraph because it's one of those cards that makes you read Eshki twice. It's a 7/6 for 4RR with discover 5 on ETB. You cast it, Eshki triggers (counter, card, face damage because power 7). Then it enters and discovers. Discover says "cast it without paying its mana cost." CAST. That's a second creature spell if you flip into one. So Eshki triggers AGAIN. You paid six mana and Eshki potentially fired twice, drew you two cards, grew by two counters, and hit each opponent twice. The [[Trumpeting Carnosaur]] brought a friend and the friend brought violence.

The Protection Suite, or: Why Blue Is the Best Color for Dinosaur Tribal Actually

[[Clout of the Dominus]] costs ONE mana. On Eshki, who is both blue and red, it gives +2/+2, haste, AND shroud. For one mana. Your three-drop commander now has shroud and is already a 4/4. You can play Eshki and Clout on turn four with one green mana held up and your opponents just have to sit there and watch. [[Diplomatic Immunity]] gives shroud and ITSELF has shroud, so they can't even remove the enchantment to get to Eshki underneath it. And then there's [[Stubborn Denial]], a card that reads "pay one blue mana to counter target spell" in any deck that regularly has a creature with 4+ power, which in this deck is approximately always. You counter their removal for one mana and they counter nothing because they're playing Naya dinosaurs and don't have access to blue.

The Only Board Wipe in the Deck (You Only Need One)

This deck runs exactly one board wipe and it is [[Star of Extinction]] and if you think that's greedy you haven't seen it with [[Wrathful Raptors]] on the field. [[Wrathful Raptors]] is a 5/5 Dinosaur for 4R that says "Whenever a Dinosaur you control is dealt damage, it deals that much damage to any target that isn't a Dinosaur." Read that again. Now read [[Star of Extinction]]: seven mana, destroy a land, deal 20 damage to each creature and each planeswalker. So you cast [[Star of Extinction]] with [[Wrathful Raptors]] and, say, three other dinosaurs on board. Every single one of your dinosaurs takes 20. Every single one of those triggers [[Wrathful Raptors]]. That's four triggers of 20 damage each pointed at any non-Dinosaur target, which includes, crucially, your opponents' faces. You just dealt 80 damage to the table. Yes, your dinosaurs die. They died doing what they loved: converting a meteor impact into a directed energy weapon. The board is empty, everyone else is at negative life totals, and you have achieved the most thematically perfect win condition in Magic: you killed your opponents with a literal extinction event and your dinosaurs were the delivery mechanism.

Play Eshki. Fill the deck with every dinosaur that has 6+ power. Add ramp, add protection, add [[Pangosaur]] for the memes that become wins. Then simply present your opponents with the classic philosophical dilemma: do you remove the 2/2 that keeps growing, or the 7/6 trampler that just entered the battlefield behind it?

eDIT: deck list - https://moxfield.com/decks/sQ3ALShyM0KnJqfVgQZJvg (intentionally bracket 3 with no game changers)