Etali, Primal Storm card art

Etali, Primal Storm

Legendary Creature — Elder Dinosaur MV 6

Tracked across real Commander games played through TurnZero HQ.

What it does

Whenever Etali attacks, exile the top card of each player's library, then you may cast any number of spells from among those cards without paying their mana costs.

Rulings

7 official rulings, in the order Wizards published them.

  • 2021-03-19

    If an exiled card has X in its mana cost, you must choose 0 as the value of X when casting it without paying its mana cost.

  • 2021-03-19

    Any cards not cast, including land cards, remain in exile. They can't be cast on later turns, even if Etali attacks again.

  • 2021-03-19

    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.

  • 2021-03-19

    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.

  • 2021-03-19

    Because all attacking creatures are chosen at once, a creature cast this way can't attack during the same combat as Etali, even if it has haste.

  • 2021-03-19

    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.

  • 2021-03-19

    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 permissions based on a card's type are ignored, and the spells resolve before blockers are declared.

Rulings are Wizards of the Coast's own, mirrored from Scryfall and refreshed nightly.

In the 99

Every deck whose current list includes Etali, Primal Storm, whatever its commander.

Decks running it 8
Games played 13
Win rate 23.1%
Confirmed on board 0 Games where a board photo caught it actually in play.

Most played under

Colors it shows up in

  • Naya 3 decks
  • Mono-Red 2 decks
  • Jund 1 deck
  • Gruul 1 deck

Every version of Etali, Primal Storm

23 printings, newest first. Prices are the market figures Scryfall publishes, refreshed nightly — a printing with no figure shows a dash rather than a zero, because Scryfall genuinely publishes none for some of them.

Prices from Scryfall, which tracks the TCGplayer and Cardmarket markets. They move daily and are a guide rather than a quote. Search TCGplayer for Etali, Primal Storm — a name search across every version, for the printings TCGplayer publishes no direct link to.

Aggregated from Commander games tracked in TurnZero HQ. Every figure counts decks and games only — no individual deck list, player or playgroup is identified. Win rates are withheld below 5 completed games, where the sample is too small to mean anything.