Foundations Commander Tramplesaurus Rex Deck Budget Upgrade Guide

Five Commander precons under the Foundations banner released October 2, offering a lower priced entry-level Commander experience. Are they just a beginner product, or is it worth it to buy a Foundations precon?

Tramplesaurus Rex is one of five new precons. All are monocolored, and all are focused on a main creature type. This is a deck all about big power, with a mono-green stompy flavor. 

TRAMPLESAURUS REX – GHALTA, PRIMAL HUNGER

Ghalta is a 12/12 Dinosaur with Trample, and though her actual mana value is also twelve, she can be cast for significantly less. Each generic mana in her mana cost can be reduced for each power of creature you have in play. What this roughly means is that she’ll not only be much cheaper than twelve mana the first time, but that if you continue to build out your board, she can even evade Commander tax through that cost reduction. 

Ghalta is a great Commander for a beginner, sure – with that 12/12 statline providing a two-hit commander damage clock. That said, the deck is also a really fun one to refine as a more invested player, as you get to play with some very specific cards that are kinda bonkers due to Ghalta being in the command zone.

Reprint value is spread pretty evenly across multiple solid cards, with Birds of Paradise, Surrak and Goreclaw and Beast Whisperer being the pricier cards. With Witch’s Clinic, Arachnogenesis and Elemental Bond among the other highly played cards, this precon gives good access to highly playable cards, especially if you’ve not built many green decks before.

With plenty of playables, this makes the precon a solid pickup. So, what do we do with Ghalta to make it even stronger? Well, we focus on cards that care about power, toughness, mana value, and commander damage.

$15 BUDGET UPGRADE

Given these decks retail for $34.99, it seems fitting to round up to $50 with a $15 budget upgrade plan. This is a sweet spot for beginners or folks who want to try out the deck with a few clutch edits, while giving plenty of space to further customize the deck to personal tastes. Do you go all in on Dinosaurs? All in on Voltron? What Game Changers could you add? We’ll consider these and more after we go over our eight upgrades.

Our eight upgrades were picked to enhance our power-matters synergies early on the curve, power-up our Voltron style wins, and have fun with our quite unique Commander.

Majestic Genesis is the reason to play Ghalta. For eight mana, you get to peel off the top twelve cards of your library and put every permanent you find into play – and the best part is, it doesn’t care if Ghalta is in the CZ or in play. You just get superb value! 

With a Commander like Ghalta, you have a very unique advantage in running cards that scale off of power, toughness, or mana value. Lifestream’s Blessing is twelve cards (or more) for six mana, regardless if Ghalta is removed in response. If you do foretell it, you get twenty-four or more life, too – which is a massive resource and life swing. Boon of Boseiju cares about mana value, which when we cast it with Ghalta in play, can give one of our creatures +12/+12 until end of turn. Provided we have a clear path, that’s an almost certain commander damage kill with our Commander.

While I was tempted to put Return of the Wildspeaker into this modest upgrade suite, I decided instead to opt for a cracking land that we can use after a board wipe. Cactus Preserve can turn into a 12/12 Plant because of Ghalta, and it doesn’t card where Ghalta is currently located. That means you can activate Cactus Preserve for three, and then pay as little as two mana to get Ghalta into play. You could then swing with the Cactus Preseve, cast Boon of Boseiju, dome someone for 24, and still have the land untapped. Sneaky.

Tramplesaurus Rex has some Dinosaur synergies, so swapping out some of the early game mana creatures for Dinos instead makes sense, especially when they have good Power. Topiary Stomper ramps a land, and Wayward Swordtooth helps us drop all those extra lands we draw into play. 

Getting early power on the board is key in a deck like this, so having a Slumbering Trudge for as little as one mana is a great deal. Forgotten Ancient is one you can drop quietly, and watch those counters rack up. You can transfer them wherever you like, and sometimes, that’ll be onto Ghalta for that extra you need to trample over and eliminate someone. 

Our eight cuts are:

• Forest – Can cut a land easily enough
• Tranquil Thicket – swapping a tapped land for a utility land
• Scavenging Ooze – quite low impact and mana hungry
• Clifftop Lookout – we have on-theme ramp to consider
• Commander’s Sphere – as above
• Colossal Majesty – we’ve introduced some stronger card advantage 
• Harmonize – we’ve introduced better ways to spend mana
• Steel Leaf Champion – we’ve added better more synergistic creatures

WHERE TO GO NEXT WITH AN UPGRADE

So, precon sleeved, enjoyed and playtested, and our budget upgrades are performing well – what’s next?

To get the most out of Ghalta, we need more ways to buff our board, more ways to draw insane amounts of cards, and even more synergistic mana production. 

The Hobbit’s Dancing from Dark to Dawn is a sweet upgrade target, providing 2/2 tokens and a massive amount of +1/+1 counters. Return of the Wildspeaker is an easy pick, as is Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, who can tap for boatloads of mana.

When it comes to Game Changer cards, I feel like the best of the bunch for us are likely Crop Rotation, Ancient Tomb, and Natural Order. They all help with our mana production, and with powering out the creatures that synergize with our Commander.

Extending your budget allows access to even more ways to get commander damage kills, and a much stronger manabase. Disciple of Freyalise does a lot of work in this kind of deck – all of the incidental lifegain you can add will help you become unkillable, while threatening the table with massive amounts of damage. 

Keep an eye out for our other budget upgrade guides for the rest of the Foundations Commander precons this week.