It's true that Cam's deck doesn't represent that much but it's a basis... as for tiers, there are proof why they're on tier in tournaments and not some random encounters. Animar players haven't break it. But before Animar can be properly represented, it has to beat them in a sanctioned matches.
Oh, I do think that this Animar decks can break the format but we need solid interaction other than, "meet me and let's play." If it won a single tournament against 8+x people, then I'll give the respect it deserves or at least on the top decklists. That way, we can compare notes what's wrong with their decks and ours.
Before Edric decks won tourneys, people's decks aren't too mainstreamed and can have whatever they have until someone post a basis for every Edrics. Hopefully yours can be in the future and post your domination to at least more than half of every players online, I can only suggest.
It just that, we need more solid foundation than giving it 1v1 whenever we feel like it. For all we know, there's a deck out that does a lot better than our decks. That's my beef...
like you said before, if Animar gets online without counters on turn 2-3 then it's your win. What happens if that doesn't happen... plus some random control cards waiting to be countered just for that guy.
This deck needs something that prevents that, Mystic Snake is there but its cmc is too steep to counter. Hence, I suggested some unorthodox cards like Opposition that utilized aggro. In my scenario, we have a lot of weaklings that can use to untap lands for mana, why not screw our opponent's resources as well? Edric also have the same tempo as Animar when it comes to creature drawing and some deck variation utilized it... we can used it since its cost is not that bad....
Library can also help you. You said you can win within turn 4, life lose is no matter then... 3 cards for 8 life is not that bad.
Losing 1-2 creatures is not bad of a deal.
-----------------------------------------------
If Mtg has another online tourney, hopefully your deck can win against tier decks.
Been watching this deck in action all day. Incredibly fast. I went 2-1 against in with my Hordes deck, but honestly probably should have lost the 3rd game. Drew the nuts card that saved me the game. I've been watching it versus other matchups and its capable of taking a series off of any deck as long as you have a decent starting hand. If you have a godly hand (which happened in our game 2 of our series), you can combo off on T2.
@Acardus: Just because the French aren't playing the deck doesn't mean that it isn't an A tier deck. I honestly think this is A 100% and even possibly an S. Not sure on the win ratios versus other S decks, but I'm sure they would be fairly even.
The only suggestion I can give is using 0 drop artifact creatures. Since you are drawing so many cards, these are essentially "free" counters to Animar along with being skullclampable. Things like Ornithopter (which I know is unclampable) and Memnite might be things to try. Besides that, everything looks well oiled.
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French EDH BRGW Saskia the Unyielding BRGW GUWB Thrasios, Triton Hero // Tymna the Weaver GUWB B Braids, Cabal Minion B G Titania, Protector of Argoth G R Zurgo Bellstriker R
Founding Father of [Team Stepfathers]: We beat you and you hate us My Street Art
I considered Memnite, but for the most part he's a free counter and a dead card. It is very deliberate that there aren't any dead draw creatures, and the closest thing to a dead draw creature, Quirion Sentinel, filters mana and combos with both Cloudstone Curio and Wirewood Symbiote.
Food Chain is another one of those interesting cards like Aluren that sounds better on paper then in practice. It is however purely card disadvantage, and it greatly disrupts the combo flow to cast. The initial cost recoup doesn't give you any options as to what you remove, and the act of removing your creatures takes away their future worth.
A lot of times, you're going to want to capitalize on your previously cast creatures with bounce effects, clones, untappers, convoke, gaea's cradle, skullclamp and various other effects. After cast, all of your creatures remain essential resources. When it boils down to it, Cradle and skullclamp alone reason enough not to run Food Chain.
My Animar deck is very similar but I have a few different choices. The main one that comes to mind is Vexing Shusher. It isn't great when you're already going off but it can be great in ensuring that you do go off. There are some MUs, especially on the draw, where you really want Shusher before casting Animar. I'm also running pretty much evey cantrip creature with only a single coloured mana out there, going so far as playing Haru-Onna and Striped Bears. I also think Duplicant is pretty necessary, it's often free and gets rid of problematic dudes.
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Standard: Humanimator
Modern: Jund, Wafo-Tapa UWR
Legacy: Witch-Maw Stoneblade
EDH: Ruhan of the Fomori, Hazezon Tamar, Maga, Traitor to Mortals
As for Vexing Husher, he's arguably worse than Gaea's Herald. The thing is though, MU control isn't that bad of a matchup, and is certainly not worth retuning against. I'd much rather worry about matchups like Ruhan and Iname in which they actually can generate card advantage and board position while adequately slowing down Animar. If you want sick counterspell tech, run Daze. It'll get there consistently.
Duplicant, as mentioned specifically within the primers notable exclusions, pales in comparison to Ulamog, Phantasmal Image, Phyrexian Metamorph and Gilded Drake. There are almost always better options than tutoring Duplicant, and outside of being a toolbox card, he's generally a dead draw.
Feel free to post up your version if you'd like though.
@Balkoth Equilibrium's {1} additional cost is a real deal breaker. You're only going to be able to combo with Peregrine Drake, and breaking Phantasmal Image limits your options when you're land count is less than 4. This really closes the doors to short-mid stack combos, and limits your card reach.
Cloudstone Curio turns on infinite combos without doing the ever-so-obscenely-complex eldrazi reset loop. For the most part, when you're actually doing that particular combo, you're already picking up your deck.
It was in earlier revisions of the deck. Whirlpool Rider is better because of it's skullclamp-ability. They're both awkward though because of the sequential nature of the creature chains. More often than not, it'll be undesirable to shuffle your hand in, and you'll be wishing it were something else.
If you're going to go for the budget build of this deck, I'd really just only cut Imperial Recruiter, and try to assemble as complete of a land base as possible. Of the duel lands, Volcanic Island and Taiga can be cut, however I'd really try to keep Steam vents, Stomping Ground, Breeding Pool and Tropical Island if possible. Unfortunately, there really isn't all that much wiggle room on the mana base because of the sheer volume of cards that abuse the land-typing quality of duals. Fortunately, the vast majority of cards in the deck are under 50 cents.
I'm trying to make a similar style of Animar with low cmc creatures designed towards multiplayer so the tempo can be a couple turns slower and such as my meta isn't super aggro or combotastic. Could I still do the land base without all the over $10 lands?
and indirectly
Lotus Cobra
Fetch Lands
Dryad Arbor
Wirewood Symbiote
Not to mention Phantasmal Image, Cloud of Faeries, Peregrine Drake, Shrieking Drake, Man-O'-War
When you're doing full stack combos, various interactions become significantly more important. More often then not, when you're going for a skullclamp/cradle chain, you're going to need to dig desperately for a mana-filter, and the presence of breeding pool for example will allow you to filter green mana with wood elves into a game-breaking cloud of faeries/peregrine drake/clone/bouncer.
Most decks in the format run the full fetch/dual land package purely for mana-fixing and then supplement that with various multi-color non-basic lands. Animar however cares about land-typing perhaps more than any other deck in the format. There is a very deliberate exclusion of many obvious choices - City of Brass, Ancient Ziggurat, Copperline Gorge, Battlefield Forge, Karplusan Forest, Shivan Reef, Yavimaya Coast etc. Even the basic land count is a huge consideration.
To abandon duals/fetch lands, you'd need to pretty much abandon every card that is land-type dependent, and rework the mana base with a significant non-basic land %.
I'd reconsider running Animar in multiplayer entirely. People don't appreciate T3/T4 infinite ulamog chains, especially in multiplayer where people generally don't run adequate disruption. It's a competitive deck meant for 1v1 competitive play. Even with 1v1, there is a scarcity of pilots/decks of caliber to even have long interactive games. I can almost guarantee your play group won't appreciate this deck.
If you want to make a nerfed Animar deck, just take out all the game changing cards: Earthcraft, Skullclamp, Gaea's Cradle, Survival of the Fittest, Cloudstone Curio, Imperial Recruiter, Glimpse of Nature, Slithermuse etc. Even better, you could run a bad curve. IE: Tidespout Tyrant, Momir Vig, Primordial Sage, Tower Geist, Regel Force, Llanowar Empath, Merchant of Secrets, Council of Advisors, Great Whale, Kiki-Jiki.
It doesn't really take rocket science to make a bad deck though. Anyway, this thread is overtly 1v1 non-multiplayer hardline. Go post in a multiplayer animar thread.
Jester. I've been lurking these fourms for a while now, and I noticed that I haven't seen your name on any of these results from tournaments. I feel like this deck is very well constructed, and you seem to be very 'read up' on the ins and outs of EDH, but with all due respect, do you have any credentials to back this deck up? (Excuse me for being ignorant if you just happen to be gods gift to magic or something.)
And also, you say that this deck is streamlined to win on T4 or T3, so if that objective isn't met, I'm assuming this deck can still perform well?
And finally, what are animar's Worst MUs? Like for example, how does he do against nin?
in any case, thanks for reading and take your time responding if you're going to. =]
@Sky - I rock out on cockatrice. I missed the entry for the last MTGS EDH tourney, and haven't been all that adamant about looking for other online tournaments. That said, there has been quite a bit of clamor on various other forums specific to this deck list, and that's largely because of it's performance within that well-versed community.
As far as bad matchup's go, I haven't found any matchups in which Animar is at a distinct disadvantage, however the really interesting matchups are Radha, Iname, and Ruhan.
Mid/Late game is also very strong.
@Emether - This is a legitimately challenging deck to pilot: the mulligan strategy alone is relatively obscene, and the actual combos are all very intricate and somewhat unintuitive. It's a huge learning curve, and warrants considerable play testing.
Build the deck on cockatrice, test it out, and get a feel for it before committing to buy anything. Hit me up on Cockatrice and i'll walk you through some stuff.
The deck does very good against Edric. It's significantly more consistent, and tempos out faster. It's very easy to punish them for doing even so much as casting Edric.
Yea I feel like just the threat of animar *possibly* being cast and sticking to the board is enough to disrupt control or aggro/control deck game plans. A smart player would not tap out and let you go off, but at the same time, they have to let all the dorks and stuff resolve which could easily get out of hand and just go beatdown. Have you won this way? Seems to me that's a valid strategy against an opponent playing around animar is to just not really cast him or only cast when you are 100% sure he'll land. Just curious anyways.
Do you think it's possible to breifly describe your Mulligan Strat? You don't have it on the OP =[
And also... Maybe it's not Edric that beats me, but I get significantly crippled by Jitt. Like yesterday I played against Edric, turn 2 Jitt = GG for me it seems. What are your natual responses to jitt? (You can't even cast animar. >_<)
The deck, while quick, is also incredibly fragile. You need some protection. Using all of your available slots for your combo is horribly inefficient and will get you killed against a highly disruptive opponent. Right now, I view this deck as something similar to SI. Your early game is great... unless you get disrupted. Then you pretty much fold.
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Tantarus: It didn't make the gaka greifer level, so it should be fine
The deck, while quick, is also incredibly fragile. You need some protection. Using all of your available slots for your combo is horribly inefficient and will get you killed against a highly disruptive opponent. Right now, I view this deck as something similar to SI. Your early game is great... unless you get disrupted. Then you pretty much fold.
One card that I have found as super secret Animar tech in multiplayer I think could help you out in 1v1 also. That is Glamerdye. Not only can you instant speed protect Animar from any targeted non-colorless destruction, but you can use it to ensure you get in for lethal general damage. Don't forget that you can change the protection color WHILE Animar is on the stack as well to prevent any EtB effects that might happen. Plus, the Retrace turns those extra lands in your hand into further protection though this feature is better in mulitplayer.
The deck, while quick, is also incredibly fragile. You need some protection. Using all of your available slots for your combo is horribly inefficient and will get you killed against a highly disruptive opponent. Right now, I view this deck as something similar to SI. Your early game is great... unless you get disrupted. Then you pretty much fold.
A thousand times this. just put this list on cockatrice and play out some hands, the frequency that it stalls out due to low threat density is almost laughable. even in the sample hands in the primer, if in any of those games your opponent decided to counter imperial recruiter and that was the only spell they countered all game, that one counterspell would leave the deck dead in the water. I mean really, a blue deck with without counterspells in this format? What? ninety percent of the meta is made of blue decks with at least ten counterspells and this list has no interaction whatsoever.
Im not really one to rock the boat but I think a lot of what is in the primer is probably ficticious.
Gaka, I wouldn't really consider it "incredibly fragile". Even in the matchups I've let my opponents have stacked hands - IE starting with wraths, burn, counters etc of choice, it's still very resilient. There are a lot of answers in here to combat disruption, and distinct strategies for animar-less mid/late game play. I'm more than open to specific suggestions if you could propose some.
Sky: Jitte is the absolute worst card to play against. You generally get a small window to kill them on T3-4 before Jitte becomes live, after which point your options narrow. Phyrexian Metamorph eats Jitte (note: they can only respond to you casting metamorph, not the choice nor Jitte dying). Otherwise, fog outlets delay things counters: hapless researcher, quirion ranger + dryad arbor, skirk propsector, tinder wall, scarecrone, wirewood symbiote + and elf, or wild cantor. Spellskite is very good out as well. The majority of losses will be solely from this card.
Lemonbuster, countering imperial recruiter, and only imperial recruiter, by no means leaves the deck "dead in the water". It's an extremely abstract combo deck, and I don't expect anyone to just shuffle it up and grasp it on first take, let alone appreciate it off of just looking at the list. If you want to see it in action, challenge me on Cockatrice one of these times. Bring Edric or whatever you want to test, and we'll put that matchup to the test.
Here are a couple ideas, maybe bad, but eh they're ideas
Glen Elendra Archmage (U to cast, U to counter a spell, U to counter another spell, seems pretty solid?) Sigil Captain (3/3 Animar out of the gates, and you have SOOO many 1/1's in the main... could let you have a beatdown wincon)
Here are a couple ideas, maybe bad, but eh they're ideas
Glen Elendra Archmage (U to cast, U to counter a spell, U to counter another spell, seems pretty solid?) Sigil Captain (3/3 Animar out of the gates, and you have SOOO many 1/1's in the main... could let you have a beatdown wincon)
Uh, Animar isn't white so that's a big no-go. Also, gimps Skullclamp but that point is moot anyway
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"You are what you pretend to be, so you must be careful what you pretend to be" from Mother Night
It may seem like a lot of peacocking on the part of Jester, but this deck is a huge contender for top 5 decks in the meta. That it eats alive every non-counter heavy deck and every deck that isn't packing tons of red spot removal puts it a clear cut above the rest. While most decks in the meta ("best decks" among them) are trying to goldfish their way to a mid-game win with some goodstuff , Animar goldfishes so much better and faster.
To expound on those points a bit, the competitive meta has yet to include many red-based decks at this point, despite their obvious potential against decks such as Edric and.. all the top decks with tiny little creatures holding swords/Jitte. So that leaves us with control heavy decks, decks that are already extremely weak to a huge density of one drops, mana dorks especially. Against both of these types of decks (those with 10+ counterspells and those with 10+ red spot removal spells), Animar still fares extremely well.
That bears repeating in a different fashion: against its two worst matchup types, Animar's win chances are still around 45-50% from what I've witnessed.
From watching other players recently try their hand at this deck, the games I've spectated on Cockatrice have been overwhelmingly in the Animar players' favor. I've seen games grind on against red decks, but Animar can still generate way too much card advantage and pump out threats faster than the red player can answer them, with their inability to keep their hands full.
An interesting quirk I've noticed in a few Animar players, however, is their reluctance to make use of the combat step before they've reached a critical combo state. But I totally understand this! When my Sisay deck was built around game-ending combos, I held my creatures back in combat every single turn as a sort of paranoid precaution. Until the deck evolved to deal with its bad matchups (and eventually went away from combo) and spectators started pointing out my mistakes, I almost always neglected the combat step.
What I'm saying is: This deck is still fairly new, and indeed the learning curve is very high. Once players start to think about winning alternatively or possibly running a handful of disruption cards in the same way that Edric has evolved on Cockatrice (Misdirection, so hot), this deck will start to make more of a splash. Until then, it's a bit misunderstood and, ostensibly, overrated.
But again, given my own experience playing against it and watching it on Cockatrice, this deck is "the real deal." At least until the meta takes its course and we see more efficient red decks making use of Pyroclasm effects and control decks not afraid to include more Wraths. Since that day seems still far and away (especially in the French tourney scene), this deck can steal a ton of easy wins against most of the decks in the current meta.
Oh, I do think that this Animar decks can break the format but we need solid interaction other than, "meet me and let's play." If it won a single tournament against 8+x people, then I'll give the respect it deserves or at least on the top decklists. That way, we can compare notes what's wrong with their decks and ours.
Before Edric decks won tourneys, people's decks aren't too mainstreamed and can have whatever they have until someone post a basis for every Edrics. Hopefully yours can be in the future and post your domination to at least more than half of every players online, I can only suggest.
It just that, we need more solid foundation than giving it 1v1 whenever we feel like it. For all we know, there's a deck out that does a lot better than our decks. That's my beef...
like you said before, if Animar gets online without counters on turn 2-3 then it's your win. What happens if that doesn't happen... plus some random control cards waiting to be countered just for that guy.
This deck needs something that prevents that, Mystic Snake is there but its cmc is too steep to counter. Hence, I suggested some unorthodox cards like Opposition that utilized aggro. In my scenario, we have a lot of weaklings that can use to untap lands for mana, why not screw our opponent's resources as well? Edric also have the same tempo as Animar when it comes to creature drawing and some deck variation utilized it... we can used it since its cost is not that bad....
Library can also help you. You said you can win within turn 4, life lose is no matter then... 3 cards for 8 life is not that bad.
Losing 1-2 creatures is not bad of a deal.
-----------------------------------------------
If Mtg has another online tourney, hopefully your deck can win against tier decks.
Duel Commander
URG [Primer] Maelstrom Wanderer [Primer] URG
Duel Commander Current Projects:
RGWMarath, Will of the WildRGW
BRXMogis, God of SlaughterBRX
RWxIoras, God of VictoryRWx
WBxAthreos, God of PassageWBx
Created By: DarkNightCavalier
@Acardus: Just because the French aren't playing the deck doesn't mean that it isn't an A tier deck. I honestly think this is A 100% and even possibly an S. Not sure on the win ratios versus other S decks, but I'm sure they would be fairly even.
The only suggestion I can give is using 0 drop artifact creatures. Since you are drawing so many cards, these are essentially "free" counters to Animar along with being skullclampable. Things like Ornithopter (which I know is unclampable) and Memnite might be things to try. Besides that, everything looks well oiled.
BRGW Saskia the Unyielding BRGW
GUWB Thrasios, Triton Hero // Tymna the Weaver GUWB
B Braids, Cabal Minion B
G Titania, Protector of Argoth G
R Zurgo Bellstriker R
Founding Father of [Team Stepfathers]: We beat you and you hate us
My Street Art
That said, curving out is a big concern, and the addition of more 0/1 drops could afford the deck to play Llanowar Empath, Tower Geist, Merchant of Secrets and Council of Advisors without breaking tempo. In my current list, I'm running Skirk Prospector and Azusa over Eternal Witness and Rofellos. I'm thinking next on the review ballot are Sage of Epityr and Augury Owl.
A lot of times, you're going to want to capitalize on your previously cast creatures with bounce effects, clones, untappers, convoke, gaea's cradle, skullclamp and various other effects. After cast, all of your creatures remain essential resources. When it boils down to it, Cradle and skullclamp alone reason enough not to run Food Chain.
Modern: Jund, Wafo-Tapa UWR
Legacy: Witch-Maw Stoneblade
EDH: Ruhan of the Fomori, Hazezon Tamar, Maga, Traitor to Mortals
As for Vexing Husher, he's arguably worse than Gaea's Herald. The thing is though, MU control isn't that bad of a matchup, and is certainly not worth retuning against. I'd much rather worry about matchups like Ruhan and Iname in which they actually can generate card advantage and board position while adequately slowing down Animar. If you want sick counterspell tech, run Daze. It'll get there consistently.
Duplicant, as mentioned specifically within the primers notable exclusions, pales in comparison to Ulamog, Phantasmal Image, Phyrexian Metamorph and Gilded Drake. There are almost always better options than tutoring Duplicant, and outside of being a toolbox card, he's generally a dead draw.
Feel free to post up your version if you'd like though.
@Balkoth Equilibrium's {1} additional cost is a real deal breaker. You're only going to be able to combo with Peregrine Drake, and breaking Phantasmal Image limits your options when you're land count is less than 4. This really closes the doors to short-mid stack combos, and limits your card reach.
Cloudstone Curio turns on infinite combos without doing the ever-so-obscenely-complex eldrazi reset loop. For the most part, when you're actually doing that particular combo, you're already picking up your deck.
If you're going to go for the budget build of this deck, I'd really just only cut Imperial Recruiter, and try to assemble as complete of a land base as possible. Of the duel lands, Volcanic Island and Taiga can be cut, however I'd really try to keep Steam vents, Stomping Ground, Breeding Pool and Tropical Island if possible. Unfortunately, there really isn't all that much wiggle room on the mana base because of the sheer volume of cards that abuse the land-typing quality of duals. Fortunately, the vast majority of cards in the deck are under 50 cents.
land-type matters for:
Arbor Elf
Fathom Seer
Orcish Lumberjack
Quirion Ranger
Wood Elves
Earthcraft
Utopia Sprawl
Gush
and indirectly
Lotus Cobra
Fetch Lands
Dryad Arbor
Wirewood Symbiote
Not to mention Phantasmal Image, Cloud of Faeries, Peregrine Drake, Shrieking Drake, Man-O'-War
When you're doing full stack combos, various interactions become significantly more important. More often then not, when you're going for a skullclamp/cradle chain, you're going to need to dig desperately for a mana-filter, and the presence of breeding pool for example will allow you to filter green mana with wood elves into a game-breaking cloud of faeries/peregrine drake/clone/bouncer.
Most decks in the format run the full fetch/dual land package purely for mana-fixing and then supplement that with various multi-color non-basic lands. Animar however cares about land-typing perhaps more than any other deck in the format. There is a very deliberate exclusion of many obvious choices - City of Brass, Ancient Ziggurat, Copperline Gorge, Battlefield Forge, Karplusan Forest, Shivan Reef, Yavimaya Coast etc. Even the basic land count is a huge consideration.
To abandon duals/fetch lands, you'd need to pretty much abandon every card that is land-type dependent, and rework the mana base with a significant non-basic land %.
I'd reconsider running Animar in multiplayer entirely. People don't appreciate T3/T4 infinite ulamog chains, especially in multiplayer where people generally don't run adequate disruption. It's a competitive deck meant for 1v1 competitive play. Even with 1v1, there is a scarcity of pilots/decks of caliber to even have long interactive games. I can almost guarantee your play group won't appreciate this deck.
It doesn't really take rocket science to make a bad deck though. Anyway, this thread is overtly 1v1 non-multiplayer hardline. Go post in a multiplayer animar thread.
And also, you say that this deck is streamlined to win on T4 or T3, so if that objective isn't met, I'm assuming this deck can still perform well?
And finally, what are animar's Worst MUs? Like for example, how does he do against nin?
in any case, thanks for reading and take your time responding if you're going to. =]
As far as bad matchup's go, I haven't found any matchups in which Animar is at a distinct disadvantage, however the really interesting matchups are Radha, Iname, and Ruhan.
Mid/Late game is also very strong.
@Emether - This is a legitimately challenging deck to pilot: the mulligan strategy alone is relatively obscene, and the actual combos are all very intricate and somewhat unintuitive. It's a huge learning curve, and warrants considerable play testing.
Build the deck on cockatrice, test it out, and get a feel for it before committing to buy anything. Hit me up on Cockatrice and i'll walk you through some stuff.
The deck does very good against Edric. It's significantly more consistent, and tempos out faster. It's very easy to punish them for doing even so much as casting Edric.
And also... Maybe it's not Edric that beats me, but I get significantly crippled by Jitt. Like yesterday I played against Edric, turn 2 Jitt = GG for me it seems. What are your natual responses to jitt? (You can't even cast animar. >_<)
The deck, while quick, is also incredibly fragile. You need some protection. Using all of your available slots for your combo is horribly inefficient and will get you killed against a highly disruptive opponent. Right now, I view this deck as something similar to SI. Your early game is great... unless you get disrupted. Then you pretty much fold.
EDH:
RNorin the WaryR <-Link! (Primer - Mono Red Control)
GUEdric, Spymaster of TrestUG <- Link! (Mini-Primer - Dredge)
Duel Commander:
WUGeist of Saint TraftUW <- Link! (Aggro-Control)
BGSkullbriar, the Walking GraveGB <- Link! (Aggro)
BUGDamia, Sage of StoneGUB <- Link! (Extinction Control)
Church of the Wary
So then what exactly should change?
First posted EDH deck: Hakim, Beardmaster
A thousand times this. just put this list on cockatrice and play out some hands, the frequency that it stalls out due to low threat density is almost laughable. even in the sample hands in the primer, if in any of those games your opponent decided to counter imperial recruiter and that was the only spell they countered all game, that one counterspell would leave the deck dead in the water. I mean really, a blue deck with without counterspells in this format? What? ninety percent of the meta is made of blue decks with at least ten counterspells and this list has no interaction whatsoever.
Im not really one to rock the boat but I think a lot of what is in the primer is probably ficticious.
Sky: Jitte is the absolute worst card to play against. You generally get a small window to kill them on T3-4 before Jitte becomes live, after which point your options narrow. Phyrexian Metamorph eats Jitte (note: they can only respond to you casting metamorph, not the choice nor Jitte dying). Otherwise, fog outlets delay things counters: hapless researcher, quirion ranger + dryad arbor, skirk propsector, tinder wall, scarecrone, wirewood symbiote + and elf, or wild cantor. Spellskite is very good out as well. The majority of losses will be solely from this card.
Lemonbuster, countering imperial recruiter, and only imperial recruiter, by no means leaves the deck "dead in the water". It's an extremely abstract combo deck, and I don't expect anyone to just shuffle it up and grasp it on first take, let alone appreciate it off of just looking at the list. If you want to see it in action, challenge me on Cockatrice one of these times. Bring Edric or whatever you want to test, and we'll put that matchup to the test.
Glen Elendra Archmage (U to cast, U to counter a spell, U to counter another spell, seems pretty solid?)
Sigil Captain (3/3 Animar out of the gates, and you have SOOO many 1/1's in the main... could let you have a beatdown wincon)
Uh, Animar isn't white so that's a big no-go. Also, gimps Skullclamp but that point is moot anyway
First posted EDH deck: Hakim, Beardmaster
Well, I really gotta see this deck in action more. Teach us jester!
It may seem like a lot of peacocking on the part of Jester, but this deck is a huge contender for top 5 decks in the meta. That it eats alive every non-counter heavy deck and every deck that isn't packing tons of red spot removal puts it a clear cut above the rest. While most decks in the meta ("best decks" among them) are trying to goldfish their way to a mid-game win with some goodstuff , Animar goldfishes so much better and faster.
To expound on those points a bit, the competitive meta has yet to include many red-based decks at this point, despite their obvious potential against decks such as Edric and.. all the top decks with tiny little creatures holding swords/Jitte. So that leaves us with control heavy decks, decks that are already extremely weak to a huge density of one drops, mana dorks especially. Against both of these types of decks (those with 10+ counterspells and those with 10+ red spot removal spells), Animar still fares extremely well.
That bears repeating in a different fashion: against its two worst matchup types, Animar's win chances are still around 45-50% from what I've witnessed.
From watching other players recently try their hand at this deck, the games I've spectated on Cockatrice have been overwhelmingly in the Animar players' favor. I've seen games grind on against red decks, but Animar can still generate way too much card advantage and pump out threats faster than the red player can answer them, with their inability to keep their hands full.
An interesting quirk I've noticed in a few Animar players, however, is their reluctance to make use of the combat step before they've reached a critical combo state. But I totally understand this! When my Sisay deck was built around game-ending combos, I held my creatures back in combat every single turn as a sort of paranoid precaution. Until the deck evolved to deal with its bad matchups (and eventually went away from combo) and spectators started pointing out my mistakes, I almost always neglected the combat step.
What I'm saying is: This deck is still fairly new, and indeed the learning curve is very high. Once players start to think about winning alternatively or possibly running a handful of disruption cards in the same way that Edric has evolved on Cockatrice (Misdirection, so hot), this deck will start to make more of a splash. Until then, it's a bit misunderstood and, ostensibly, overrated.
But again, given my own experience playing against it and watching it on Cockatrice, this deck is "the real deal." At least until the meta takes its course and we see more efficient red decks making use of Pyroclasm effects and control decks not afraid to include more Wraths. Since that day seems still far and away (especially in the French tourney scene), this deck can steal a ton of easy wins against most of the decks in the current meta.
My Captain Sisay Duel Commander Primer
Duel Commander Mega-Thread