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Dino DNA

Artifact

Imprint — {1}, {T}: Exile target creature card from a graveyard. Activate only as a sorcery.
{6}: Create a token that's a copy of target creature card exiled with this artifact, except it's a 6/6 green Dinosaur creature with trample. Activate only as a sorcery.

CMC
1
Mana cost
{1}
Color identity
C
Rarity
rare
Set
Jurassic World Collection
Price
$14.93
EDHREC rank
#6103
Buy on TCGplayer
Dino DNA card art
Dino DNA converts any Dinosaur dying into a free token copy of it — that's an engine, not a trick, and it costs three mana to land. Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer // Blue, Loyal Raptor decks run it because replacing a removed Dinosaur with an identical token immediately neutralizes the tempo loss of removal. Selvala, Heart of the Wilds strategies that go wide with large creatures also appreciate the redundancy, but the tribal lock means most of its homes are explicitly Dinosaur builds.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Owen Grady, Raptor TrainerBlue, Loyal Raptor

Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer // Blue, Loyal Raptor

45.6% of decks · synergy 0.45

Dino DNA slots into Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer // Blue, Loyal Raptor as a recursive safety net — every Dinosaur that dies replaces itself, which means removal stops being card disadvantage and Owen Grady's pumping abilities keep getting targets.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern not legal
pioneer not legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Dino DNA is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, and Commander is the only venue where it actually sees play. In Legacy and Vintage the tribal restriction and three-mana price tag put it nowhere near competitive consideration — those formats don't run Dinosaur synergy packages. Oathbreaker is viable in theory inside a Dinosaur build, but the player base is small enough that real data is thin. Commander is where Dino DNA earns its keep: the 100-card singleton format rewards redundancy, games go long enough for a three-mana enchantment to pay off repeatedly, and Dinosaur tribal has enough support to build around.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

75 decks
Dino DNAPalinchron

Dino DNAPalinchron

Infinite copies of cards exiled with Dino DNA; Infinite creature tokens; Infinite ETB; Infinite mana lands you control can produce; Infinite untap of lands you control

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

No single card replicates Dino DNA exactly, but Strionic Resonator can copy triggered abilities including death triggers in the right shell, and Mimic Vat exiles a creature when it dies and produces temporary tokens of it — cheaper to acquire and more flexible across creature types, though it only copies one creature at a time and the token disappears at end of turn. If the goal is simply keeping board presence after removal rather than tribal synergy specifically, Cauldron of Souls or a recursion engine like Haunted Crossroads covers the gap at lower cost, with the trade-off that neither generates tokens and both require more setup.

Price Context

Current price

$14.93 mid tier

At $14.93, Dino DNA sits in the mid tier — meaningful budget consideration for a tribal enchantment with a narrow home. It's a set-specific card tied to a theme with a ceiling determined by the size of the Dinosaur Commander playerbase, so the price reflects genuine demand rather than speculation.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.