Etali, Primal Conqueror // Etali, Primal Sickness
Legendary Creature — Elder Dinosaur // Legendary Creature — Phyrexian Elder Dinosaur
Legal Salt 1.65Rank #752
Trample
When Etali enters, each player exiles cards from the top of their library until they exile a nonland card. You may cast any number of spells from among the nonland cards exiled this way without paying their mana costs.
: Transform Etali. Activate only as a sorcery.
Trample, indestructible
Whenever Etali deals combat damage to a player, they get that many poison counters. (A player with ten or more poison counters loses the game.)
Why is this card good?
Etali, Primal Conqueror is one of the best top-end payoffs in Gruul ramp. The ETB is pure value chaos: you cast free spells from every player's deck, often netting multiple bombs, lands-into-spells, and removal. In a 4-player pod that's typically 3-5 free cards, and in a deck full of cheats and reanimation, it snowballs immediately.
The real engine is recursion. Decks that blink, reanimate, or repeatedly cast it (via Cloudstone Curio, sacrifice loops, or just casting it twice a game) generate absurd advantage. The backside is a genuine wincon — flip it and you're handing out poison counters with trample and indestructibility, killing a player in two swings.
Wants: big-mana Gruul ramp, Temur/Jund value piles, anything with Tooth and Nail, Sneak Attack, or Kiki-style cheat effects. Commanders like Pantlaza, Yidris, or as a 99 in Gishath.
Skip it in low-curve aggro, tight cEDH lists where 7 mana is too slow, and combo decks that don't want to hand opponents free spells.
Related cards
Etali, Primal Storm
Original Etali with same cast-free-spells-on-attack effect.
Apex Devastator
Huge cascade payoff casting multiple free spells like Etali's ETB.
Maelstrom Wanderer
Gruul cascade beater chaining free spells into play.
Genesis Ultimatum
Top-of-library free cast payoff in RG.
Galea, Kindler of Hope
No—replace with Worldspine Wurm? Actually big finisher synergy.
Xenagos, God of Revels
Doubles Etali's power and gives haste for huge poison swings.
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
Big green ramp finisher pairing with Etali's mana hunger.
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Top-end colorless beater and reanimation/cheat target alongside Etali.
Printings (4)
Rulings (7)
- 2023-04-14
If you cast any of the exiled cards, you do so as part of the resolution of the triggered ability. You can’t wait to cast them later in the turn. Timing restrictions based on a card’s type are ignored.
- 2023-04-14
If you cast a card “without paying its mana cost,” you can’t pay any alternative costs. You can, however, pay additional costs. If the card has any mandatory additional costs, those must be paid to cast the card.
- 2023-04-14
If an exiled card has
in its mana cost, you must choose 0 as the value of X when casting it without paying its mana cost. - 2023-04-14
If you cast more than one of the exiled cards, you choose the order in which to cast them. A spell you cast this way can be the target of a later spell you cast this way. However, permanent spells cast this way won’t resolve until you’re done casting spells, so the permanents they become can’t be the target of spells cast this way. For example, if you exile Twincast and Lightning Strike, you can cast Lightning Strike and then cast Twincast targeting it; but if you exile a creature card and an Aura card, you can’t cast that Aura targeting that creature.
- 2023-04-14
Any cards not cast, including land cards, remain in exile. They can’t be cast on later turns.
- 2023-04-14
In a multiplayer game, if a player leaves the game, all cards that player owns leave as well. If you leave the game, any spells or permanents you control from Etali’s ability are exiled.
- 2023-04-14
Losing the game because a player (preferably an opponent) has ten or more poison counters is a rule of the game. Etali, Primal Sickness doesn’t have to still be on the battlefield when someone (preferably an opponent) gets their tenth poison counter.