Bron walked slowly through the frozen wasteland, always shifting his cloak to block the howling winds that ravage the world of Solis. Bron despised the cold, “How can anything live in such a place?” he thought to himself. He could see the entrance to the Uterran lands. Bron quickened his pace as best as he could in the sub-zero temperatures. His joints were stiff from walking many miles. However, his travels above ground were necessary to keep a close eye on the other factions. As he reached the entrance to the underground, Bron couldn’t help but smile when he saw trees and of course his beloved dinosaur, Ena. Though blind, her sense of smell was impeccable. She perked right up once Bron’s scent was close enough and Bron couldn’t have been happier. “You could not imagine the day I had, Ena.” Bron spoke as the feeling started to return to his extremities. “If only I had your warmth with me on my travels.” Bron stopped at this sentence. An idea was forming in his head. Bron mounted Ena and rode as fast as Ena could handle back to the Tuskin city.

Once Bron arrived he went straight to the druidic academy to find Tu’rak, the Arch Druid of the Tuskins. “I’ve got it.” Bron said as he barged into Tu’rak’s room in the academy.

“Got what?” Tu’rak hummed as he turned around from his readings and lesson preparation.

“How to keep an army above the surface.” breathed Bron. His breath was quick from the speeds of his travels. Tu’rak, dumbfounded at Bron’s statement, could only muster a “How?” out of his bewilderment.

“We bring the Uterran lands the surface.” stated Bron, his breath slightly more controlled now.

Tu’rak sat in silence for a few moments, gathering the information of what Bron just said. Then it clicked. Tu’rak smiled. Bron smiled. “Brilliant.” Tu’rak hummed as they turned to leave Tu’rak’s room.

At the gate between the Uterran lands and the cold wasteland of Solis Bron, Tu’rak, a few of the best druids in land and the strongest dinosaur Bron could find stood. The druids that surrounded the dinosaur were chanting ancient druidic words. Tu’rak held a root from the sacred tree Gemheart. The roots of Gemheart are so powerful that Tu’rak had to focus his power to prevent the root from growing onto him. Bron guided Tu’rak toward the dinosaur since Tu’rak’s focus was on the root. Tu’rak placed the root on the dinosaur. As he did Tu’rak began his own chanting of druidic spells. The root began to grow quickly. Roots sprouted all over the dinosaur’s back. The roots then began to infuse themselves with the dinosaur. Luckily, the druidic spells prevented the dinosaur from feeling the pain of having the Gemheart being fused with the dinosaur’s bones. The dinosaur began to grow along with the roots themselves. A tree began to form atop the dinosaur’s back. The gems that were so characteristic of the Gemheart tree began to bud and added to the speed of the growth. Bron started feeling warmer and noticed that grass was growing underneath him. In fact, the once barren land began sprouting all kinds of plants known only to the underground lands of Uterra. Small animals from past the Uterran gate began to gather around the dinosaur, whose tree was now almost near full size. The druid’s chants began to subside as the tree blossomed on top of the dinosaur. The gems glowing bright and the plants full of life. The temperature now felt as if it were summer. Bron could almost feel the heartbeat of the dinosaur pulsing life all around it. Bron called the dinosaur to leave the gates and traverse the cold barren world of Solis. With each step the dinosaur took, life sprouted out of the ground. The dinosaur became a mobile piece of the Uterran lands. Bron smiled as he reveled in the creation of Tu’rak and the druids.

“What shall we call it, Tu’rak?” Bron asked the Arch druid. Tu’rak marveled at his creation. Dinosaurs began to gather alongside the massive plant-dinosaur. Bron noticed the other dinosaurs walked faster and looked stronger than previously.

After some thought, Tu’rak finally answered Bron’s question, “Mosstodon.”

“I like that name, old friend.” Bron said as he walked with Tu’rak above ground without having to wear a cloak to protect him from the harsh weather that has plagued Solis. It seemed that Uterra had gained a new symbol of hope.

unofficial lore by prototype0

I’m excited to introduce this rare Uterra creature — Mosstodon is not only a great Draft pick, but also Constructed playable since it fills two important roles in the dinosaur theme that were missing before.

But let’s start with Draft first. Just by its stats Mosstodon would be pickable as a vanilla creature and could serve as a solid underdrop. Therefore this card is basically playable in Draft without any other dinosaurs (which is very important for judging the viability of Mosstodon in Draft). With only a single other dinosaur on the board Mosstodon is already a powerful combat trick and the more copies of Mosstodon you have the better. On top of that most dinosaurs are pretty solid in draft and Mosstodon can give the Tempys dinosaurs some much needed survivability. In Avelak’s Draft Tier List I would certainly rate Mosstodon in the (lower) above average catergory for AU, NU and probably in the great tier for UT (but that really depends on the number of dinosaurs in the draft pool).

This directly brings me to Constructed – Bron, Wild Tamer has a powerful healing ability, but sadly, there aren’t a lot of high health dinosaurs that benefit much from his ability. To make things worse – there has been only one dinosaur so far with an “enters the field” ability (Roaming Warclaw). So even though dinosaur tribal has been Constructed playable since Bron was released, it still couldn’t quite keep up with other Tier 1 decks. I don’t think that Mosstodon will directly push dinosaurs over the top, but it will help to make the tribe better.

Use Mosstodon to buff your dinosaurs and then overwrite him with Bron. It strengthens your current board immediately with potential to heal them again – pretty cool, huh? Apart from that just buffing your existing dinosaurs can be quite powerful – especially the dinosaurs with breakthrough — Uterradon Ridgeback and Umbruk Lasher (also Thundersaur, Umbruk Glider/Icecrusher). Another neat synergy in UN dinosaurs could be Immortal Echoes (or other revival effects), since it also triggers Mosstodon’s effect.

As a rare, Mosstodon could also have an impact on the lower rarity formats Unheroic and Unlegendary, but that is a task for you to find out.

For Standard I would suggest the following 17 card shell which you could combine with any other faction:



Dinosaurs!

3 Bron, Wild Tamer

3 Roaming Warclaw

3 Mosstodon

3 Uterradon Ridgeback

3 Shardplate Behemoth

2 Dendrify

UN Dino Zoo

This package would be very close to a curent UN Dinosaur list, which as been optimized to utilize Mosstodon well. Probably not the most exciting dinosaur version, but I expect it to perform pretty well (against non Herald decks).

3 Leyline Demon

2 Thundersaur

2 Aetherphage / Uterradon Rex

3 Immortal Echoes

2 Dysian Siphon

1 Scythe of Chiron

AU Tracking Dinos

I have actually toyed around with a different take on Dinosaurs in an AU tracker list in set 5.2. This list is fun, but also much more challenging to play, since you can often either play this deck aggressively with the Bron combo or more slowly with Bramblewood Tracker, Esperian Sage, Malice Hermit and Othra, Apex Predator.

3 Bramblewood Tracker

3 Esperian Sage

3 Malice Hermit

2 Oreian Justicar

2 Othra, Apex Predator

UT Bron’s Dream

Since one more faction combination is missing I thought it would be awesome to showcase UT dinosaurs with some new spice. This list is probably the most experimental one, since I haven’t played with anything similar, but I think it could be incredibly fun to play.

It will definitely need some fine tuning and I guess Shardplate Behemoth isn’t that great in the list (Firestorm!), but it’s really hard to judge upfront. If the pieces fall together and you get your Bron combo along with Dream Tree and Static Shock/Firestorm combo you will have fun for days :-).

Another idea could be to utilize Umbruk Lasher in this list, but with only nine Tempys cards he is too hard to trigger. Maybe Lasher can be used if you add more burn spells to the deck (Lighting Spark).