Curious Altisaur
Creature — Dinosaur
Vigilance, reach
Whenever a Dinosaur you control deals combat damage to a player, draw a card.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- G
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander
- Price
- $3.75
- EDHREC rank
- #2874
Curious Altisaur enters and immediately draws you a card for each +1/+1 counter on it — a payoff that scales hard in counter-stacking shells. Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer // Blue, Loyal Raptor loads counters onto Dinosaurs as a core mechanic, making Curious Altisaur one of the format's cleanest draw engines in that strategy.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer // Blue, Loyal Raptor
Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer // Blue, Loyal Raptor distributes +1/+1 counters across your Dinosaurs constantly, so Curious Altisaur routinely enters a board where it can draw four, five, or six cards the turn it arrives.
Pantlaza, Sun-Favored
Pantlaza, Sun-Favored's discover trigger fires whenever a Dinosaur enters, meaning Curious Altisaur both draws cards from its own ETB counters and chains into another discover when it lands.
Gishath, Sun's Avatar
Gishath, Sun's Avatar floods the board with Dinosaurs from the top of the library, and Curious Altisaur gives that critical mass a way to convert board presence into cards before opponents stabilize.
Wayta, Trainer Prodigy
Wayta, Trainer Prodigy cares about creatures with power four or greater, and Curious Altisaur's natural 4/4 body qualifies it as both a combat piece and a draw outlet when counters accumulate.
Indoraptor, the Perfect Hybrid
Indoraptor, the Perfect Hybrid incentivizes loading individual creatures with counters to trigger its hunt ability, and Curious Altisaur converts that same counter density into card advantage without any additional investment.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Curious Altisaur is a Commander card through and through — its ETB draw scales with counters, and Commander is the format where games go long enough to stack them. Outside Commander, it's legal in Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but those formats have no competitive niche for a seven-mana 4/4 that draws cards only on entry. In Oathbreaker it's a fine inclusion in any counter-based green strategy, though the 60-card starting life total compresses game length and blunts the payoff. Treat Curious Altisaur as a Commander-first card with fringe Oathbreaker application.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$3.75 cheap tier
At $3.75, Curious Altisaur sits at the high end of budget staples — steep enough to feel like a deliberate include, cheap enough that its inclusion rate across tens of thousands of Dinosaur decks makes complete sense. Given how concentrated its demand is in Dinosaur tribal, the price is stable as long as Pantlaza, Gishath, and Owen Grady remain popular commanders.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer // Blue, Loyal Raptor
- Pantlaza, Sun-Favored
- Gishath, Sun's Avatar
- Wayta, Trainer Prodigy
- Indoraptor, the Perfect Hybrid
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.