MTG Salvation

1) That's a bad either or, they should both make the cut. Coiling Oracle is should absolutely make the cut.
2) Basic lands coming into play tapped is pretty meh. Neither Yavimaya Granger nor Ondu Giant come close to making the cut.
3) Neither of these fit with the imperial combo, however Erayo is fine in goodstuff animar, however this isn't a goodstuff thread.
4) It's certainly a contender for a slot, but it's counter productive to the combo; it's a completely dead draw any other turn than second in most scenarios, and unless you're running on nothing, it's not worth the tempo loss to cast. IMO Animar, as it stands, probably has the best card advantage distribution in the format - the deck is built largely around comboing through sheer card advantage.

1) Time Spiral vs Myojin of Seeing Winds vs Regal Force, which you think is best? What is the order of priority? (So I need a guess)

Regal Force is the easiest of the three to cast, has its cost reduced by Animar, can be found using creature tutors and GSZ, and also doesn't give your opponents cards. I think it's the best.

That being said all three of them are pretty bad.

Yea, dunno what to tell you here. IMO the control matchup is generally favorable, however there's basically no margin for error. I can probably start recording games and posting them up to better illustrate the strategy.

Control takes practice, having a removal spell for Animar is nothing new honestly, you just have to know how to push your margins, sometimes you want to ramp and build up a large hand forcing them into situations where they have to constantly burn removal. Sometimes you just have velocity and kill them in the first few turns. I've had double board wipes and removal/counter for Clamp and Survival and still completely blown out the control player.

Does Treasonous Ogre make the cut for its ability to burst upwards of 8-9 red mana for free?

@Jester: In your list you run a single Mountain. I was wondering what the value in this is. The only advantage over another Island/Forest/Manafixer that I see is to avoid 2 damage from a shock land. Is there something else I'm not seeing, and does this utility overshadow the possibility of getting in trouble with mulligans due to a misplaced mountain?

I'm really just barely learning the deck, but it was something I got thinking about and decided I'd just ask =)

Quote from Comicalflop »

Does Treasonous Ogre make the cut for its ability to burst upwards of 8-9 red mana for free?

I'd like to know this as well. I hadn't seen that card before, and it's really interesting. Maybe Gaea's cradle just does enough of that on it's own, though?

Quote from KuroKitten »

@Jester: In your list you run a single Mountain. I was wondering what the value in this is. The only advantage over another Island/Forest/Manafixer that I see is to avoid 2 damage from a shock land. Is there something else I'm not seeing, and does this utility overshadow the possibility of getting in trouble with mulligans due to a misplaced mountain?

I'm really just barely learning the deck, but it was something I got thinking about and decided I'd just ask =)

Quote from Comicalflop »

Does Treasonous Ogre make the cut for its ability to burst upwards of 8-9 red mana for free?

I'd like to know this as well. I hadn't seen that card before, and it's really interesting. Maybe Gaea's cradle just does enough of that on it's own, though?

I'd say the Ogre isn't worth it. Red mana requirements aren't that prevalent in the deck to begin with, so the mana generated from the Ogre would essentially be colorless- which Jester time and again points out isn't needed.

And besides, what would you even want to cut for the Ogre?

@KuroKitten: Having access to basic lands is important in this deck due to how insane-o strong of a card Earthcraft is.

Quote from Jester831 »

Yea, dunno what to tell you here. IMO the control matchup is generally favorable, however there's basically no margin for error. I can probably start recording games and posting them up to better illustrate the strategy.

I think that would help all of us tremendously.

So far Wraths.deck has been the only thing I've struggled with. Somehow the guy I was playing against last night supposedly pulled every wrath effect in his deck both games; I wanted to slam his face into the table. T2 Animar was hit with miracle Terminus (WTF?) and then something else game 2.

If I would have tried to just focus on ramping up and then tried to go off in one turn maybe I could have done better, but I've never tried to slow play the deck before.

I don't know if I need to just concede this matchup to luck, or if my opponent was full of ***** about pulling every wrath they had both games.

Other than that I haven't struggled much with Animar. There's a guy who plays PolyClique, and I can usually push past the counterspells.

Hey guys, just switched from marath to playing Animar... Animar is pretty nuts! Was wondering if any changes to the list that did well at the tourney in Arras? I'm in the USA so it's hard to stay with the decklists.

Thanks for all if the info! So you don't think the 9th place list is that good? After some testing against... Geist, lyzolda, karador, marath, clique I was able to only lose done games to Geist and beat each deck several times so I feel the list is solid. I do like your list as well, it seems very resilient. What changes would you make to both lists if any?

Which other bosses that hoses etb ability in a competitive meta?

Sweet, card looks like a sure addition

Well if you're directly worried about too much green mana and not enough blue, just do a switch with Man-o'-War.

This seems playable sure, but I'm not really convinced that it's better than any of the blue gating creatures. For one, from a hedge your bets perspective, Man-o'War is actually relevant when things aren't going your way; control magic wars anyone? Being green is a nice perk, but not at the cost of tempo, which makes Invasive Species more or less only relevant when Gaea's Cradle is in the mix.

If you're combing, and running into issues maintaining a good balance of blue mana, there are a number of options. The biggest thing I would recommend is to focus on utilizing Artisan of Kozilek down the road. This means suddenly clamping Imperial or Metamorph is frequently preferable, and opens you up to being able to abuse things like Survival of the Fittest, Wirewood Herald, Fierce Empath, Eye of Ugin etc. Aside from the immediate blue-less reset, there's a number of ways to generate absolutely obscene card advantage with Artisan, and he's really easy to tutor. Take a minute, and focus your combos on Artisan, and then re-evaluate Invasive Spieces. I just don't think it's that exciting once you're able to tame mana.

New list posted a top 8 performance. Was not like the list from Arras? Which list is better? Not sure how I should build it

The new list seems to be a mixture of the Good Stuff and Imperial variations. It's basically an Imperial Animar with a lot of 2-card combos stuck inside of it. I don't like it as much as either the goodstuff or the combo version, since it looks like it'll have difficulty casting its cards AND executing the combo.

Can I see a list of the normal combo Animar deck? Right now I play good stuff imperial Animar. And I was thinking of cutting izzet staticaster it has done nothing for me in a lot of games and no one at my lgs plays marath besides me. Also, would anyone make they changes to the recent good stuff list?

Well, so I'm not entirely sure what you mean here by the "normal combo Animar deck". As far as comboing and Animar goes, this list, Imperial Animar, is more or less the norm, or at the very least, the foundation. There is a pretty large spectrum of "good stuff" Animar decks, whereas Imperial Animar refers to almost exclusively the all-in, systematic combo flavor proposed here. I'm not sure what the deck leaders are as far as good stuff goes, or if there is even one that stands out definitevly.

I would recommend making a separate thread for discussing "good stuff" Animar; they're really night and day different decks, and this thread is concerned with the combo variants.

oh ya jester, I remember you considered playing Sylvok Replica as a G answer for stuff like jitte, but now we have Reclamation Sage in M15, who also only costs G, and can be bounced with symbiote, and can be clamped. New staple for the deck?

Actually, it might be worth considering Reclamation Sage. It's a LOT better considering it's optional, can hit enchantments, and is clampable. That, and Jitte can't be killed by Phyrexian Metamorph anymore. I'll have to playtest this.

Did you try the new Sage yet?

A few cards I'm considering that I'd like your opinion on. I don't just want just a hand-wave "What would I cut?" answer, but also your opinion on these cards supposing you had a slot open.

First, Faithless Looting (and Careful Study)? When you have lands in hand and you want to keep the chain going, they seem incredibly useful.

Gamble is kind of jank because you could end up throwing away Prime Time, but someone else has asked this before unanswered so I'm curious.

Manamorphose is a card I don't think you could convince me to cut. It's like Gitaxian Probe in that it's a cantrip that nets you 0 mana. It's kind of a "free" deck thinner that also fixes your mana a bit. Definitely interested in your opinion on that.

Considering you don't run Bloodbraid Elf (presumably because you have nothing to cut) this one might not interest you, but Genesis Hydra is a pretty cool card that digs deep and lets you put a permanent in for free. It's 2 mana for 2 permanents, just like Sharding Agent but he's got quite a body to him too and lets you choose.

Let me know what you think of those. And also, a decklist update would be nice if you find the time. Even the tappedout one is a bit out of date. Thanks!

Well, to be clear, there's a mile long list of things that I'd play if there wasn't the dilemma of what to cut.

1) I like Faithless looting, but it's awkward to cast, and I'd rather have something like Gush.

2) Manamorphose is really good. It can screw you over sometimes by costing 2, but the main issue is that it offers little utility in a deck that doesn't need any thinning. As it stands, I feel like more or less all of the non-creature slots are really strong. The weakest slots being Land Grant, Sylvan Tutor, and Cloudstone Curio. I've been down on Curio lately - it's an instant win card, is versatile in a lot of situations, but fundamentally feels more and more like a means to simplify the explanation of an already infinite combo. It's pretty slow, and really holds you back until you're already through all the motions. At that point, I think Artisan + Earthcraft + Phyrexian Metamorph + Shrieking Drake + Skullclamp works well as an infinite combo that can readily be explained and has no uncertainty. Survival, while technically being an infinite combo, is too complicated to explain to really be suitable. I'm more than willing to bet that in a tournament scenario, a judge will consider the combo to have too many decisions between iterations to allow you to declare it as an infinite.

3) Bloodbraid Elf doesn't fit the curve. Hydra is interesting, but it's really sexy if you're using it after you've already set up primeval/cradle, and never really before. I think it's more worthwhile to optimize the combo leading up to primeval, it comes down easy, and you'll probably win by virtue of primeval alone if you can't win outright on the spot.