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Zetalpa, Primal Dawn has become something of a meme amongMagic: The Gatheringplayers. It’s frequently reprinted, and despite its impressive stats and long list of keywords, has been supplanted by other, scarier mono-white commanders. However, with its inclusion in the Foundations Starter Collection, it’s also one of the best choices for your very first Commander deck.
A big Dinosaur with a nasty bite, Zetalpa can be a fin deck to build, and a harder one for your opponents to counter. Build up the enchantments and Equipment, and you’ll be slapping down the table in no time.
Zetalpa, Primal Dawn Commander Decklist
Zetalpa is a mono-white commander, meaning this deck can only usecards with colourless or white colour identity.
Keeper of the Accord
Sword of Feast and Famine
Sword of the Animist
Plains (x20)
Witch’s Clinic
The Commander: Zetalpa, Primal Dawn
Zetalpa is one of the most ubiquitous white legendary creatures in Magic: The Gathering, withdozens of reprints since its debut in Rivals of Ixalan. While it’s often considered more of a chaff rare in a format full of better alternatives, with the right build Zetalpa can be a nightmare to deal with.
It’s the keyword soup in its rules text that helps secure Zetalpa’s position in so many decks.Flying, double strike, vigilance, indestructible, and trampleall add up to make an intimidating creature, especially when it has 4/8 stats thrown on top of it. With so mcuh keeping it in play an dhelping it slip damage through, there’s one clear way to build Zetalpa: voltron.
Voltron is a deckthat uses lots of Auras and Equipment to beef up a single creature until it can hit for massive damage, instead of going wide with multiple, smaller creatures. You often see it inred and white decks, but Zetalpa offers an interesting mono-colored way of playing the archetype.
Key Cards
All That Glitters, Ethereal Armor, And Thran Power Suit
As a Voltron deck, Zetalpa wants you to runall sorts of Equipment and Aura enchantments.With that in mind, having a way to cash in one the sheer number of these modifications with a scaling buff can be very powerful.
Ethereal Armor is the weakest of these three, as it only counts Enchantments and not Equipments.
All three of these cards give Zetalpa +1/+1 for each Aura or Equipment is attached to it. That means with just these three, you’ll be getting a +8/+8. And, of course, in Voltron deck, these arenever going to be the only three you play.
Solid Footing And Gauntlets Of Light
As an 4/8, Zetalpa has a massive butt. But it’s also indestructible, meaning that toughness feels somewhat redundant unless you find ways to turn it into damage.
With Solid Footing and Gauntlets of Light, Zetalpa will bedealing damage equal to its toughnessrather than its power, meaning it hits for eight at its base amount. There are cards in this deck that also buff your toughness, likeMask of AvacynandMirror Shield, which could be a quick way to get Zetalpa up to a toughness that’s lethal for your opponents if it hits.
Sram, Senior Edificer
It’s much more likely that Sram would be the commander for a Voltron deck,b ut even in the 99 he isa powerhouse of card value. This deck is full of Equipment and Auras, which Sram turns into much-needed card draw.
Card draw is one ofwhite’s biggest weaknesses, as it usually needs you to either let an opponent draw, or limit itself to just one per turn. Sram has neither of these, and can be the engine that drives your decklong before Zetalpa comes out.
Sun Titan And Brilliant Restoration
The biggest downside of a Voltron deck is you’reputting all your eggs in one basket. Zetalpa is an incredibly tough basket to break, but if it does leave play you could lose a lot of Aura enchantments very quickly. Because of that,you need recursion.
Sun Titan and Brilliant Restoration are the two key recursion pieces in this deck, giving you a way to get easy access to your cards again once they hit the graveayrd. Sun Titan lets you do it consistently across turns, butBrilliant Restoration is an explosive card that could set you up for a win.
How To Play Zetalpa, Primal Dawn
As mentioned, this deck builds Zetalpa up as avoltron deck, where you’re buffing its stats up absurdly high. The goal is totake opponents out through commander damage, potentially in one attack.
In Commander, if an opponent takes 21 combat damage from a commander, they lose the game.
However, Zetalpa comes with a few issues to overcome. The first ismana cost, as Zetalpa is very expensive at eight mana, which forces you to run cards likeKeeper of the Accordto ramp up your mana as quickly as white will allow.
You’re going to want to get Zetalpa out into play as fast as possible to ensure your opponents haven’t built up ways to block, so making liberal use of mana rocks likeSol Ring and Arcane Signetis more important here than it is in other commander decks.
The other problem is that, as you’ll only be building Zetalpa up very big, you’re a target for removal. Zetalpa’s vigilanceallows it to block after attacking, but you’re still going to want to run other creatures, andespecially tokens, to get around forced sacrifice. Make Zetalpahexproof via Mirror Shield or Swiftfoot Bootsto stop it from being exiled, as well.
If you need more drastic ways to save yourself,Teferi’s Protection is a great inclusion. You’ll not be able to hold off go-wide decks, so having a way to opt out of combat altogether until Zetalpa is ready to bring the beatdown is handy.
If you can afford it, or are lucky enough to own it,Serra’s Sanctumcan provide massive amounts of mana. If you don’t have it, another Plains is fine.
Once Zetalpa is out, you’re going to beputting as many Auras and Equipments on it as possible. The goal is to get it up to at least11 power, or11 toughness if you’re running Solid Footing or Gauntlets of Light. That way, the double strike will mean Zetalpa is dealing 22 damage, which is enough to take out an opponent through commander damage.
Use cards likeSram, Senior Edificer and Puresteel Paladinto gain card advantage, refilling your hand with each Aura or Equipment you play. White isn’t the best at drawing cards, but making sure Zetalpa is a big threat before your opponents have time to remove it is vital to swinging.
This deck does run Worldslayer, a controversial card that destroys every other permanent in the game when the equipped creature deals damage. Thisincludes lands, which isoften not encouraged at Commander tables.You should check with your pod before running it, but as Zetalpa is indestructible, you’ll quickly be able to finish off your opponents through commander damage before they have a chance to rebuild.
