Building with Flavor: Huatli, Warrior Poet

Posted on November 23, 2023

Welcome back, Lore Seekers! Today we're going to tackle a new flavor build that is, personally, very exciting for me: Huatli, Poet of Unity // Roar of the Fifth People! I love Naya dinosaurs, and we're going to be building one that isn't just 'Velociramptor'. I also wanted to build the deck in a way to bring it in under $100: there are only a handful of cards over $2. Let's dive in!

Who Is Huatli

Huatli's Spurring by Zack Stella

Huatli (Pronounced "Watt-Lee") was first introduced in the original Ixalan block as Huatli, Warrior Poet and has been a recurring character ever since, popping up every couple of years, often alongside the artificer Saheeli, for reasons we'll get into shortly. Huatli is a celebrated military leader in the Sun Empire, the nation that controls most of the surface continent of Ixalan on the plane of Ixalan. She is also a renowned poet, whose verses move great crowds. Because of these two facts, she holds a great deal of influence in the empire - something that worries those in power.

The previous emperor promised Huatli the position of Warrior Poet, a coveted position that essentially makes one the predominant figure in the empire. It's the highest office one can achieve without being born into nobility. The problem was, the emperor didn't want to deliver, and so when Huatli caught a vision of a golden city when her spark ignited (but couldn't escape the pull of The Immortal Sun), the emperor was all too happy to send Huatli on one more quest before she earns her station: to find the legendary lost city of Orazca.

Huatli thus entered a race between factions to find and claim the city, the Immortal Sun held within. Huatli was forced to work with Angrath, the Flame-Chained - a violent planeswalker who had been trapped on Orazca for a decade, and later with Tishana, Voice of Thunder. Although she's not the first to arrive, the unsealing of the golden city unleashes two things: Elenda, the Dusk Rose and the elder dinosaurs trapped within. The Dusk Legion is forced to reckon with their own living saint - and her disappointment in them, and with the Immortal Sun gone, there's nothing left in the city for any of the factions. That plus, you know, the dinosaur empire having access to the ancient elder dinosaurs just outside.

Elenda hitches a ride home on Zacama, Primal Calamity and arrives to find that the emperor wishes her to tell a story that doesn't involve cooperation among their enemies. She refuses, and steals the warrior poet helmet that was hers by rights anyway.

Afterward, she planeswalks away to find the real golden city from her vision: Ghirapur, on Kaladesh. There she meets fellow planeswalker Saheeli, and the two immediately hit it off. Weeks later, the two would fight side by side in the War of the Spark. Some time later, the two find themselves passing messages back and forth on a planeswalker message board on Ravnica, not realizing it was the other planeswalker they were flirting with. When they realize it, and that the other person shares their feelings, they become girlfriends.

Years later, Saheeli warns Huatli of the impending Phyrexian Invasion. The Sun Empire is still ill-prepared for the battle, but Huatli's connection to the elder dinosaurs proves the deciding factor in the long siege of Orazca by the Phyrexians, with the elders arriving to kill the corrupted Etali, Primal Conqueror // Etali, Primal Sickness. The Lost Caverns of Ixalan story picks up about a year later, with Saheeli and Huatli desparked, and living together on Ixalan.

Huatli's Stories

Heartbeat of Spring by Peo Michie

You can read pretty much all of Hualti's stories online. While she appears in War of the Spark - Ravnica, and War of the Spark - Forsaken, it's not worth buying those books just for Huatli, and you can get a sense of her small part in the web fiction adaptations of the first novel included in the list below.

A Question of Confidence

The Race, Part 1

The Race, Part 2

Glimpse the Far Side of the Sun

The Arbiter of Law Left Chaos in His Wake

Who Tells the Stories

Wool Over the Eyes

War of the Spark: Ravnica--The Path to Opulent

War of the Spark: Ravnica--Rallying the Reluctant

War of the Spark: Ravnica--Desperate Operatives

Note for a Stranger

MOM | Ixalan: Three Hundred Steps Under the Sun

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan | Episode 1

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan | Episode 2

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan | Episode 3

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan | Episode 4

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan | Episode 5

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan | Episode 6

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan | Pawns

The Flavor Includes of Huatli's Deck

A typal-focused character like Huatli just makes keeping things in-flavor so much easier. I didn't even really need to bend much outside of cards from Ixalan to fill up her deck. But let's talk about the flavor musts!

First is the most obvious: Huatli herself. Besides Huatli, Poet of Unity // Roar of the Fifth People, I've included three of her four planeswalker cards: Huatli, Dinosaur Knight, Huatli, Warrior Poet, and Huatli, Radiant Champion. I did not feel that Huatli, the Sun's Heart fit the typal theme very well, but feel free to swap it in if you like that one. I also included a card that depicted Huatli herself: Huatli's Final Strike. There are more pieces she's on, but they weren't quite what I was going for.

Next are the cards most associated with Huatli: the elder dinosaurs Zetalpa, Primal Dawn, Ghalta and Mavren, and Zacama, Primal Calamity have all directly aided Huatli. Pantlaza, Sun-Favored is the name of Huatli's raptor mount. Wayta, Trainer Prodigy was part of Huatli's mission in to the core (and idolized Huatli as a young girl), and Inti, Seneschal of the Sun is her cousin and was her lieutenant as far back as the original Ixalan.

Saheeli is an important figure in Huatli's life, and so I wanted to include depictions of Saheeli even if no Saheeli planeswalker or legend fits in the deck. Those cards are Saheeli's Lattice // Mastercraft Raptor, Poetic Ingenuity, [Heartbeat of Spring] (the Pride Secret Lair version). Each of these works really well in a dinosaur deck.

One last flavor-include is Hijack, to represent Angrath briefly working together with Huatli.

The Flavor Bends

For once, there aren't really any flavor bends to talk about! Adaptive Automaton I'm headcanon-ing as a Saheeli robot. Some of the ramp has art from off-plane, but those are easy bends. And even Path to Exile is a nacatl, a very close cousin to the malament (both are nahua catfolk)!

Huatli, Dinosaur Poet

Mechanically, the reason to take Huatli, Poet of Unity over, say, Gishath is for ramp. You can immediately tutor up a land upon her coming into ply, and then phase two of her saga gives all your creatures the ability to tap for mana in the deck's colors. You can then tutor for Gishath or another dino-bomb on phase three of her saga side. And this is repeatable, so even if you suffer a big setback on your boardwipe, you can pull a different bomb next time after a few turns.

The rest of this deck is very simple and straightforward: it's dinosaur typal. Play your dinosaurs and turn them sideways. But here's a few mechanical call-outs:

Saheeli's Lattice // Mastercraft Raptor is a functional reanimation for a dinosaur in your graveyard. Don't go too crazy with it, but if it's not something you're going to target with something like From the Rubble, Intrepid Archaeologist, or Atzocan Seer, go for it. The dino-cycles are great targets for this, because you can get them in the graveyard early and their stats are nothing to sneeze at.

Nurturing Bristleback, Seismic Monstrosaur, and Soaring Sandwing are your stealth land tutors here. Late game, they're good bodies if you need them, but early on you should cycle them ASAP.

There's a minor egg sub-theme with Palani's Hatcher, Dinosaur Egg, and Atla Palani, Nest Tender. Remember that ANY egg dying triggers Atla Palani's ability, not just the ones she creates. I don't have a lot of Enrage in this deck, so use Wayta, Trainer Prodigy to crack Atla Palani, Nest Tender's eggs!

Without further ado, here's the decklist!