Good point.
I keep coming across cards that look good for this guy! Verdant Eidolon is mana accel plus fixing (play Kiki-Jiki easily?) whilst being recursive when you play multicolored cards, animar being one of them automatically. Scuttlemutt can be free, and fixes like a creature- Darksteel Ingot, though is more vulnerable to the expected wipes.
I feel that my deck needs more recursion whenever I play it, though. I'm normally the kind of guy to play out of the graveyard at instant speed with Phyrexian Reclamation and the like. My stompies are nice, but its easy to hit a snag against three opponents, who often remove Animar when they have the chance, and people will exile Genesis religiously. As many strengths as the guy has, its hard to go straight stompy! I'm thinking that he is a combo general after all.
Good point.
I keep coming across cards that look good for this guy! Verdant Eidolon is mana accel plus fixing (play Kiki-Jiki easily?) whilst being recursive when you play multicolored cards, animar being one of them automatically. Scuttlemutt can be free, and fixes like a creature- Darksteel Ingot, though is more vulnerable to the expected wipes.
I feel that my deck needs more recursion whenever I play it, though. I'm normally the kind of guy to play out of the graveyard at instant speed with Phyrexian Reclamation and the like. My stompies are nice, but its easy to hit a snag against three opponents, who often remove Animar when they have the chance, and people will exile Genesis religiously. As many strengths as the guy has, its hard to go straight stompy! I'm thinking that he is a combo general after all.
Verdant Eidolon looks interesting and could really help when I need multiple red or blue mana (Kiki-Jiki, Teferi, Magus of the Future). I'll make a note of her and next time I'm messing around with the deck see if I can make a spot.
Scuttlemutt: I generally avoid creature mana generators because they often die before they can even net one mana. Eidolon has the advantage of converting GG into 3 mana of any colour on the turn you play her. Darksteel Ingot might not be a creature, but it's an awesome mana stone :).
Animar certainly can go stompy, which is a great back up plan. But he is just so good at abusing combo it's hard not to include some combo elements even in an otherwise aggro strategy.
I find it strange that the OP arbitrarily frowns on some infinite combos and "unfun cards" while still playing a combo deck... whats the difference between survival of the fittest for kiki/pestersmite and fauna shaman for it? Maybe 1 turn? How does it get more fun for your opponents just because you used shaman? hmmm....
I will post my own build later as I've just started building/tinkering the deck and would like to get some ideas and comments.
2. The deck is vulnerable to sweepers and has to be built around this. Personally I'm looking at using small, card-advantage creatures to jack animar up a few notches... tribe elder, fierce empath, I even run sea-gate oracle. I am not sold on fecundity as I worry how much it'll help my opponents. Same goes for heartwood storyteller... I don't want to assist people in getting down to their answers :/
3. non-creature spells have to really pull their weight to be worth adding in. There are lots of fantastic spells out there, but you're moving against the flow of your general with every one of them that you add here. I think things like spin into myth and ray of command are valid picks. But leave insurrection and spelljack for another deck.
4. Red has very little to offer. My current list has the goliath, apocalypse hydra, and I think an ingot chewer as the only red cards in the whole thing besides animar... you just have easier/better picks generally in green or blue.
If you're looking for some ideas, take a look at my thread here.Basically, instead of doing the slow roll strategy to ramp into fatties, my version focuses more on abusing CIP abilities of relatively cheap creatures to chain into primarily the Eldrazi package. It's not exactly designed to take on multiple people explicitly, but an early eldrazi is nonetheless formidable and there still is the potential for killing multiple players at a time.
I find it strange that the OP arbitrarily frowns on some infinite combos and "unfun cards" while still playing a combo deck... whats the difference between survival of the fittest for kiki/pestersmite and fauna shaman for it? Maybe 1 turn? How does it get more fun for your opponents just because you used shaman? hmmm....
That's a fair call, I am arbitrary in my combo selection. Personally when I play Animar I never search up Kiki-Jiki and Pestermite. I actually haven't managed to get Kiki-Jiki to stay in play at all as he draws a lot of hate and is hard to cast for RRR. Given that I choose not to use the combo I should probably remove it from my deck, and yet I like the style of it, even if I don't use it (I agree, it is stupid, but that's how I like to play). As is, I tend not to play Animar too often with my play group because he is a combo deck, and I either win too quickly or get hated off the table, neither of which I find particularly enjoyable when I get opportunities to play with my friends.
As a deck-building exercise I want to make Animar as cutthroat as possible, but in practice I prefer playing a goofy hard(er) to construct combo centered around Psychosis Crawler and Glimpse of Nature. I do frown upon some of Animar's combo potential, but I also point out that those options are viable and if you choose to play them and enjoy it, all the more power to you. That is the purpose of my primer! To showcase possibilities, even if they don't suit my personal deck-building goals.
In the future (when some day I hope to have more time to dedicate to EDH) I want to include additional builds that make use of Animar's full potential.
I completely agree. Magus of the Future is clunky to cast. However his value when he makes it to the battlefield is amazing ... you can just keep casting those hamletback goliaths and indrik stomphowlers from the top of the deck. I don't suggest he's an auto-include, but he's certainly worth testing. (Also I hope you're running Duplicant before you run Phyrexian Ingester ... both would be fine, but FREE removal is better than U removal). Also it's there is a tension between mana efficiency (most value for least mana) and flexibility (more options for value more often) which is why I run Acidic Slime over the Indrik Stomphowler.
2. The deck is vulnerable to sweepers and has to be built around this. Personally I'm looking at using small, card-advantage creatures to jack animar up a few notches... tribe elder, fierce empath, I even run sea-gate oracle. I am not sold on fecundity as I worry how much it'll help my opponents. Same goes for heartwood storyteller... I don't want to assist people in getting down to their answers :/
Fair enough. I don't mind risking it, because sometimes a little bit of group hug lets me avoid attention long enough to combo off (although this trickery quickly wears thin if you play often with the same people). Also if I can live the dream and get both Phyrexian Altar and Fecundity in play, often I can keep my chain casting going until I can combo off.
3. non-creature spells have to really pull their weight to be worth adding in. There are lots of fantastic spells out there, but you're moving against the flow of your general with every one of them that you add here. I think things like spin into myth and ray of command are valid picks. But leave insurrection and spelljack for another deck.
Again I agree with your premise. Personally I don't value Ray of Command or even Spin into Myth enough to play with Animar, but I have gone an all in creature strategy with the aim of winning via combo or huge aggro smash before my opponent can establish enough of a field to threaten me... the generals that I'd really want to Spin into Myth usually have protection of some kind before I have the mana to cast it anyway
4. Red has very little to offer. My current list has the goliath, apocalypse hydra, and I think an ingot chewer as the only red cards in the whole thing besides Animar... you just have easier/better picks generally in green or blue.
I would play Imperial Recruiter if I had one. The most value you could gain from red would be using a land destruction theme, which is certainly possible, but really mean. If I was building 1 vs. 1 that would probably be the route I'd take with Animar. Red also offers haste enablers which are a way to counter sorcery speed sweepers.
If you're looking for some ideas, take a look at my thread here.Basically, instead of doing the slow roll strategy to ramp into fatties, my version focuses more on abusing CIP abilities of relatively cheap creatures to chain into primarily the Eldrazi package. It's not exactly designed to take on multiple people explicitly, but an early Eldrazi is nonetheless formidable and there still is the potential for killing multiple players at a time.
Jester's deck is 1 vs. 1 and worth checking out for a different angle, althouth I have to contest the fact that any Animar deck is about "slow roll ramp into fatties." Animar doesn't do slow roll. Animar just gives you cheap cheap fatties.
Hey gelf, I run a similar deck to yours, though I am lacking a few cards (Clone in place of Phyrexian Metamorph for example), and have made a few meta related changes (like including grave hate for my buddies Mimeoplasm and Geth decks).
It's been a few months now that I've had this deck built, and I've been slowly adding stuff. I loved that the combos were easy enough to interrupt that I didn't feel douchey.
But lately, as my friends decks have improved, the combos are too easy to hate out, and I find that I almost never win. (The most common game is my Animar vs Ghave and Mimeoplasm)
At this point in fact I am immediately the first target, and it seems like no matter what I do I get hated out first. So I'm making some changes to the deck to try to make it slightly more competitive, though I don't have a huge budget (and neither do my friends, to be fair).
Firstly, I almost never win via commander damage, as Animar is consistently being chump blocked or wiped from the board. I can't do much about the board wipes, save for playing more conservatively. But to handle the chump blocking (especially by ghave, who can chump block all day) I've decided to include a few trample enablers: Kessig Wolf Run, and Skarrg, the Rage Pits. I'm also debating including Deepchannel Mentor.
I've also found I'm a little short on removal, so I'm going to include Phyrexian Ingester alongside Duplicant (who is already in the deck).
EDIT: You know, I just realized that that combo wouldn't work. Equilibrium says whenever you CAST a creature spell. I thought it was when they hit the battlefield. Well that sucks
Take it from me, DeepChannel Mentor costs a bit too much to be worth it. I ended up cutting him since byt he time he comes out, I have Skarrg or Kessig out.
Okay yeah, after a few test runs that's kinda how I feel about him. By the time I play him either Animar has been removed a few times, or there's not enough blue creatures to abuse his ability.
Still, leaves me 3 cards and some mana ahead, but I'm not sure that means Guided Passage warrants inclusion.
EDIT: Play of the day - I finally got a Primeval Titan, and it was so much fun the first game he hit the board. I had Cloned an opponents Avenger of Zendikar twice (by saccing it and recurring it again with Eternal Witness), leaving me with 14 0/1's, and an Oracle of Mul Daya on the board, Animar with a few counters on him, and Greater Good in hand. I draw into Psychosis Crawler, and I know that's how I want to win. So I hit my two land drops for oracle, revealing Primeval Titan on top, and making my tokens 2/3's. So I pass turn, leaving mana open for Draining Whelk. (I could've swung, but a lot of my tokens would've died to my opponents fatties) I end up countering a Wrath of God with Draining Whelk, and when it comes back to me the board hasn't changed much. I drop Primeval, grab two lands, then reveal two lands in a row for Oracle. My tokens are now 6/7's - I drop Psychosis Crawler for free, looking at everyone, then drop greater good - "I draw 84 cards, you guys lose 84 life?" Muahahaha. Feelsgoodman.
An addition I have made to the deck (but haven't yet got into play) is Steel Hellkite, I'll have to go through and update my initial entry (pretty sure I removed Dosan).
Soul of the Harvest does look good. I'll probably end up running both it and Primordial Sage though
I will also try and find a spot of Zealous Conscripts probably cutting Pestermite for it (although I have to be careful not to raise my average CMC too high...) as it is more versatile while still comboing with Kiki-Jiki.
While I like the new UG ability land (it is strictly better than Winding Canyons) I find that I really need to be careful about colourless mana producing lands. The Cavern of Souls (Awesome land is awesome) however might find a spot even if I simply use it to protect my elementals
I'll take a look at your deck Janos. I'm glad to be helpful.
P.S. My comma key has stopped working. Sentence structure is suffering
Haven't had Animar out and about for a while, so decided to make changes for fun and testing! Main page decks updated, but still need to review and edit the play guides.
Again I've upgraded the manabase (although Shock lands are proxies, eagerly awaiting RtR to be made real). All cycling lands have been removed, as I'm trying to get lands that enter the battlefield untapped, and honestly I never cycled the lands, because Animar is so mana greedy once you get on the creature chain. Tolaria West was meant to find Gaea's Cradle, but often the cost in terms of blue commitment of tutoring was too hard. I'm considering getting Crop Rotation instead, as a way of finding Gaea's Cradle.
Testing Ring of Kalonia, so far haven't got it out, but adding trample to Animar seems good and the bonus +1/+1 token once a turn isn't irrelevant depending on how often board wipes have gone off. Zealous Conscripts replace Pestermite as the Kiki-Jiki combo enabler, but is also more useful at any stage of the game except very early.
Regarding Cavern of Souls, I examined my creature types and discovered they were far too variable for this to be a reliable mana fixer, and Animar can't really afford to stock too many colourless producing lands. Interestingly Shaman was the most common creature type followed by Wizard. Elemental was sadly limited to only Animar and Mulldrifter.
Also Scavenge, the new spoiled Golgari mechanic from RtR will be pretty good for Animar as a way of accelerating after multiple board wipes. Puts a counter on him when you cast the creature, and puts MORE counters on after they go to the grave. I'm interested to see what else comes out with this mechanic. Some utility creatures plus Scavenge would be dreamy.
Gelf - I've used your Animar primer as a starting point for my own Animar deck. Just a couple notes on some cards that I've used recently that you may not have thought of:
- I use Skarrg, the Rage Pits as another version of Kessig Wolf Run to also give Animar trample. He used to get chumped all day long, but w/ either one out, he just runs over whatever is out. The downside is this doesn't give colored mana so it's not great for early casting of Animar.
- As far as the M13 uncommon rings go, I go w/ the Ring of Evos Isle for the hexproof ability - just in case I can't find Swiftfoot Boots during the game. My deck revolves around Animar on the battlefield so I need another way to protect him.
- Predatory Hunger is something I saw somewhere else I think. I love having this in hand early because it just builds counters on Animar real quick without using all of our cheap creatures, and as such, it draws out early removal/board wipes because no one wants you dropping a fattie early.
- I use Skarrg, the Rage Pits as another version of Kessig Wolf Run to also give Animar trample. He used to get chumped all day long, but w/ either one out, he just runs over whatever is out. The downside is this doesn't give colored mana so it's not great for early casting of Animar.
At the moment I'm pushing what I feel comfortable with as colourless producing lands. I ended up choosing to only run Kessig Wolf Run instead of both Kessig and Skarrg, the Rage Pits, because the Wolf Run can win the game with any available creature (given enough mana) whereas the Rage Pits, while granting trample also, only benefit a few large creatures if Animar is for any reason unavailable. If you own the Rage Pits but no Wolf Run, it is a decent substitute or if you play a lot more big creatures where granting multiple creatures trample in a single attack phase is important and can afford the extra colourless producing land, run both.
- As far as the M13 uncommon rings go, I go w/ the Ring of Evos Isle for the hexproof ability - just in case I can't find Swiftfoot Boots during the game. My deck revolves around Animar on the battlefield so I need another way to protect him.
Honestly I haven't yet tested ways to protect Animar from spot removal (edit: I lie, I have Willbender in the deck for this purpose). His built in protections are effective against the most prevalent spot removal, and his weakness to red burn is mitigated (at least in my meta) by a lack of red and the general lack of versatility of the fast burn spells which keep them out of the EDH format. The big problem in my meta is Wrath of God variants. I'll wait and see how the Ring of Kalonia goes before considering others, although as I don't run Swiftfoot Boots in this deck, I'd probably throw in the boots, or Elgaud Shieldmate, or even Darksteel Plate before Ring of Evos Isle.
In a meta with more spot removal, cards like Ring of Evos Isle gain a lot more value, but the cost of protection is a major downside. Can you afford to leave 2 up per turn to respond to removal? Perhaps Glamerdye or Whim of Volrath would still be a stronger choice in these circumstances? Both have the added benefit of granting not only protection but also evasion by altering Animar's natural protections.
- Predatory Hunger is something I saw somewhere else I think. I love having this in hand early because it just builds counters on Animar real quick without using all of our cheap creatures, and as such, it draws out early removal/board wipes because no one wants you dropping a fattie early.
I can see that this would build counters on Animar very quickly in multiplayer! That said personally I try to avoid cards that only add counters to Animar. There are a number of fairly easily enabled combos that put infinite counters on Animar, and all of the pieces do something else too. I'll keep this card in mind, it does have the advantage that it doesn't require you to over-commit board presence while still enabling casting fatties early at a very cheap cost. I also like that it can be political, setting your opponents back in tempo if they choose not to cast their own creatures in an attempt to stop enabling you from casting yours.
Edit: Updated strategy guides, still need to update 'How to play' the deck.
I'll have to play around with it some more I guess.
The non-creature slots are pretty competitive, I suppose I could look into replacing Rites of Flourishing, but I do like the extra land drops and card draw.
I'll get around to making a proxy and see how it plays out. I know Jester831 uses it in his 1v1 deck to good effect.
Return to Ravnica – possible additions for Animar.
Now that the whole set has been spoiled, I thought I'd make an update regarding possible additions to my Animar, Soul of Elements deck list. The spoiler season has been quite disappointing in regards to Animar, and I hope that Gatecrash (with Gruul and Simic support) will provide more synergistic cards. Never-the-less below are my reflections on Return to Ravnica!
Please note that card links for RtR cards will be broken until the release date. Please check the spoilers here or the official visual spoiler.
Mechanics:
Return to Ravnica introduces five new mechanics and due to our URG wedge, we can gain access to them all; Detain in U, Overload in UR, Unleash in R, Populate in G and Scavenge in G. Unfortunately however with the exception of Scavenge none of them are particularly synergistic with Animar, Soul of Elements.
Detain – A lockdown mechanic found on permanents, it favours a slower control strategy. In mono blue and focusing on creatures with the ability we have:
Isperia’s Skywatch, benefits from Animar’s discount and detains a creature on entering the battlefield.
Soulsworn Spirit, benefits from Animar’s discount and detains a creature on entering the battlefield.
Neither creature is particularly impressive for its cost, although both are evasive and have a single U in their cost. The problem is detain doesn’t do a whole lot and given we can use creatures to bounce, exile or destroy problem creatures, dedicating a slot to a (more often than not) less effective form of control seems inefficient.
Overload – As a spell based mechanic, it doesn’t mesh particularly well with a creature heavy deck. Can any find a spot in an Animar deck list? Personally I don’t think any of them are worth the cost (No discount? No deal!), but that said some of these spells are very splashy:
Blustersquall can act as a fog and/or alpha strike enabler.
Mizzium Skin can protect Animar, or multiple creatures via hexproof.
Mizzium Mortars can be a one sided sweeper in your favour, meta dependent against token decks perhaps (but the RRR cost probably makes this too colour heavy, also compare with Crater Hellion)
Vandalblast is a one sided artifact sweeper (meta dependent).
Teleportal could win an aggro game by making your entire team unblockable.
Unleash – Is a creature mechanic favouring an aggro strategy and so I expected that one or two creatures with this ability might find a slot in an aggro focused deck, however as my deck seeks to make use of enter the battlefield abilities and attack with multiple creatures (if going the aggro route) utility is worth way more than a single +1/+1 boost to a creature which comes with a drawback. Looking through the mono red unleash creatures, none seem good enough for Commander in general. The biggest, Chaos Imps, is simply a big beater, but with RR in the cost and only a modest colourless discount possible, it hardly seems worth the trouble.
Populate – A creature mechanic, but specifically to take advantage of tokens by creating copies of them. Animar doesn’t gain any advantage from tokens, few of the engines in the deck gain benefit from tokens. Kiki-Jiki is better at generating tokens. Unfortunately none of the populate effects are worthy of Animar.
Scavenge – A graveyard mechanic, found on creatures, that allows +1/+1 counters to be put on creatures. This mechanic has quite a bit of synergy with Animar. At the front end you get a creature, which puts a counter on Animar and gets the advantage of his mana reduction ability. Later in the game, these creatures can put counters onto Animar from the graveyard, potentially allowing him to combo out late game after a board wipe. That said, there isn’t much that is exciting among the mono green Scavenge creatures:
Deadbridge Goliath isn’t too shabby as a 5/5 for GG. But the real bonus is being able to load five +1/+1 counters onto Animar later in the game for a reasonable cost (consider that it would take five creature casts for the same impact) which gives a lot of reach after a Wrath of God.
Drudge Beetle. Cheap creature, and a possible two +1/+1 counters late game, but expensive scavenge cost.
Golgari Decoy. Has pretty good utility in an aggro build, essentially making the rest of your team unblockable. Scavenge cost is quite high for two counters but consider that 5 mana isn’t unreasonable for the first two counters on Animar (essentially equivalent to two creature casts).
Korozda Monitor costs the same as Deadbridge Goliath for a 3/3 (trample is probably irrelevant) and his scavenge cost is far too high for three counters.
It’s unfortunate that black got cheaper scavenge costs (although from a colour pie perspective it makes sense), obviously the Golgari multicoloured creatures got the best scavenge costs and they’re not available to us. Of the scavenge creatures available to us I might consider Deadbridge Goliath and Golgari Decoy. Both are cheap enough to cast the first time around, and their Scavenge costs are reasonable for loading up the initial counters on Animar in the late game when your hand might be depleted of cheaper creatures. Sorcery speed on Scavenge affects it's utility as you're choosing between using the ability or casting creatures, but especially with the Goliath, this will often be the most efficient way of adding counters to Animar when he first gets on the board. The Decoy gains a lot of value in an aggro game plan, especially with haste enables, but by including Scavenge creatures, essentially you’re sacrificing immediate advantage through enter the battlefield abilities for late game recovery. Ultimately this has to be a meta call, are your combos always disrupted early? Are there a lot of Wrath of God effects in your playgroup? If you’re playing for the long game, these guys might be well worth the loss of initial utility.
Other Potential Additions:
Moving away from the mechanics specific to Return to Ravnica, these are the other cards I consider as candidates for a spot in an Animar deck list:
UUUBlueUUU
Faerie Imposter – Not as good as Shrieking Drake in terms of versatility of effect, but pretty effective at reusing enter the battlefield abilities and loading Animar with counters. That said, I think this creature will have a greater impact on 1v1 Animar lists which run a more aggressive curve.
Jace, Architect of Thought – I'm mentioning merely from a 'powerful card' perspective. Planeswalkers don’t have much synergy with Animar, and I don’t think this version of Jace is the one I would consider adding to the deck.
Voidwielder – an expensive Man-o'-War, with a bigger back end. If you really want to add redundancy for this effect, might be worth throwing into the deck, but there are plenty of alternatives that are cheaper or more versatile. The high toughness is rarely going to be relevant.
RRRRedRRR
Batterhorn – Biggish creature, lets you destroy an artifact. Competing with Ingot Chewer and Indrik Stomphowler for a spot, so probably not worth adding unless you absolutely have to destroy more artifacts.
Guild Feud – A large splashy enchantment. Pro, plays well with a creature heavy deck. Con, most of my creatures are small utility guys so this could back fire spectacularly. Probably not worth a spot because it’s not a creature and therefore doesn’t benefit from Animar’s cost reduction effect (If this effect was on a creature, I would of course have to play it).
Utvara Hellkite - A big dragon that generates more big dragons by attacking. Animar can give a significant discount to play it, but I'm not sure it does enough for the deck. Perhaps in a dragon tribal Animar list this would be better.
Viashino Racketeer – cheap utility creature with an EtB ability that lets you filter cards. Red looter effect (discard, then draw) isn’t as versatile as blue equivalents, but this guy might be worth considering.
GGGGreenGGG
Death’s Presence – Another expensive splashy enchantment. The +1/+1 counters might be relevant, but I don’t think this does enough for its cost to warrant a place in my Animar deck. If only the effect were on a creature...
Mana Bloom – an interesting mana fixing enchantment. Not sure it’s worth including in Animar, but it has a pretty unique effect. Perhaps if you’re considering this, also consider Druids' Repository.
Oak Street Innkeeper – A cheap creature designed to protect an aggro strategy from sorcery speed spot removal. I think there are better ways to protect against spot removal, but it might be worth including in a particularly aggressive version of the deck.
Wild Beastmaster – A cheap anthem effect for an aggro strategy. If you have ways to consistently pump his power, he could be a game winner in combination with Champion of Lambholt.
Worldspine Wurm – Huge beatstick that leaves an army behind after it dies. Animar provides a massive discount for this Wurm, so for an aggro strategy it is well worth considering. Probably not going out of my way to get one, but if I pull one from a pack, I might play test it
URUMulticolourRUR
Izzet Staticaster – minor discount, flash, haste, 1 damage to all creatures that share a name. If your meta is overrun with token armies, consider this wizard as a trick. Also the ability to instantly add a counter to Animar could act as a combat trick.
Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius – pretty mana intense (the reason I’ve never included the original Niv-Mizzet) but he’s a large creature that can act as card draw and spot removal, so worth considering. Original Niv-Mizzet does play better with the Psychosis Crawler though.
X0Artifacts & LandsXX
Chromatic Lantern & Izzet Keyrune – Personally if I was running mana rocks, I would use the Myr cycle because of the greater synergy with Animar, even if they are more prone to removal.
Codex Shredder - An interesting little artifact. I doubt it will have a place in Animar, because green is already very lucky to have some of the best graveyard recursion around, but I suspect this artifact will find a place in plenty of other decks.
Street Sweeper – if your meta includes a lot of land auras, this guy is your construct. Really I only mentioned him as the only artifact creature spoiled so far, and as such synergistic with Animar.
Volatile Rig - the other artifact creature in RtR. I'm not sure where this guy will find a home, as he seems to be an unreliable sweeper and an unreliable creature. His coin flip antics won't be finding a place in my deck.
Steam Vents – I will be picking these up. Hoping the price drops a lot before I buy them.
Izzet Guildgate – not really worth it unless you have a very tight budget or are building pauper. It is nice to have budget options.
Rogue’s Passage – Being able to make Animar unblockable could chalk up a few voltron wins. Interesting utility land could possibly replace Kessig Wolfrun? Have to be careful not to include too many colourless mana sources in Animar.
Really not that much to write home about. Let me know what you guys think! Anything I've missed or misevaluated? What are you going to put in your Animar decks from Return to Ravnica?
So I did a keyword search over each page of this thread and found no mention of Deadeye Navigator who seems like an auto-include to abuse EtB triggers or go infinite with Palinchron or always have a counterspell available via Draining Whelk.
Another cool clone for this deck is Sakashima's Student since he can be hard cast for as cheap as UU or using his ninjutsu on an attacker with an EtB trigger will allow you to cast that creature again to get another use out of their trigger.
Dream Stalker is a decent substitute for Shrieking Drake if someone is having trouble finding a copy. It only costs more than the drake on the first cast if Animar has 0 counters. Also randomly its a solid blocker with 5 toughness.
So I did a keyword search over each page of this thread and found no mention of Deadeye Navigator who seems like an auto-include to abuse EtB triggers or go infinite with Palinchron or always have a counterspell available via Draining Whelk.
I have mentioned Deadeye Navigator in my "Why don't you play [x]?" section.
Quote from me »
Deadeye Navigator - I haven't had a chance to play around with him yet. I can see the potential he has to gain huge advantage from enter the battlefield effects, to protect creatures from spot removal (although not Animar, because he doesn't want to lose all his counters) and generate infinite mana combined with Palinchron (or Great Whale, Peregrine Drake and potentially Cloud of Fairies) but I think at this stage he wouldn't facilitate anything the deck can't already do and would simply draw hate to me in the same way that Survival of the Fittest or Defense of the Heart would.
I would also like to add, that paying 1U for each reuse of EtB effects might be harder to pay than a creatures reduced casting cost. Blue mana has to be a carefully utilised resource as it is harder to produce in this deck compared to green mana (thank you Gaea's Cradle). Once Palinchron hits the field coloured mana restrictions are no longer as much of an issue, but Palinchron already combos with bounce and Animar to generate infinite mana, so Deadeye Navigator is simply a win more card in that scenario. Further more this deck doesn't really have any one thing that utilises infinite mana, so more ways of generating it seems reduntant. I like Deadeye Navigator, but in my opinion he is not an auto-include for the deck.
Another cool clone for this deck is Sakashima's Student since he can be hard cast for as cheap as UU or using his ninjutsu on an attacker with an EtB trigger will allow you to cast that creature again to get another use out of their trigger.
The trouble with Sakashima's Student is that his reduced cost will always be either UU or 1U (ninjitsu), which is strictly worse compared to Clone and Phantasmal Image (neither of which I choose to run), unless you gain some benefit from the 'enters tapped and attacking' clause. I'll make a note of the student (and Sakashima herself) for a 'MORE CLONES!' section, if someone really wants to include all the possible clone effects in a deck :).
Dream Stalker is a decent substitute for Shrieking Drake if someone is having trouble finding a copy. It only costs more than the drake on the first cast if Animar has 0 counters. Also randomly its a solid blocker with 5 toughness.
Yep, Dream Stalker is good, I should compile a list of similar creatures that can fill that role :).
Ah non-creature spells, there are so many good ones, and so little space in the deck.
Wrath protection or recovery is important as Animar has a tendency to over extend. Creeping Renaissance is an interesting choice, as it can be used twice and can refill your hand with creatures in the late game after a wrath. Unfortunately it lacks some synergy because it's not a creature, the Eldrazi legends have a habit of shuffling the graveyard away and it's got a heavy mana investment. Honestly I think this might be a good contender to in the place of Tooth and Nail or Time Spiral, if you don't have access to them. It also would suit a meta call where Wrath of God effects are in every deck and graveyard hate isn't plentiful. Another similar effect to consider is Praetor's Counsel.
The wheel effects (Wheel of Fortune, Reforge the Soul, Memory Jar) are great draw cards in red and serve as hand disruption, but in green and blue there are more reliable draw cards that are less situational (if they don't match the pure volume of card draw). Slithermuse serves a similar function and is also a creature as is Regal Force, which could also do a similar thing much of the time in this creature heavy deck. If there was an EtB creature with a Wheel of Fortune effect I would play it! (Honorable mentions to Jace's Archivist and Dragon Mage)
I have mentioned Deadeye Navigator in my "Why don't you play [x]?" section.
Oops. I didn't have the spoiler open when I used Ctrl+F to search for Deadeye on the first page.
I would also like to add, that paying 1U for each reuse of EtB effects might be harder to pay than a creatures reduced casting cost. Blue mana has to be a carefully utilised resource as it is harder to produce in this deck compared to green mana (thank you Gaea's Cradle). Once Palinchron hits the field coloured mana restrictions are no longer as much of an issue, but Palinchron already combos with bounce and Animar to generate infinite mana, so Deadeye Navigator is simply a win more card in that scenario. Further more this deck doesn't really have any one thing that utilises infinite mana, so more ways of generating it seems reduntant. I like Deadeye Navigator, but in my opinion he is not an auto-include for the deck.
I still feel he's an extra Cloudstone Curio/Erratic Portal/Crystal Shard etc... and allows you to re-use EtB triggers on about 20 of your creatures.
Speaking of EtB critters I think Wood Elves does make the cut if you're running all the dual lands cause then there are 2 duals and 2 shocks that it can grab and put into play un-tapped as opposed to the basics coming in tapped via Sakura-Tribe Elder, Farhaven Elf, Ondu Giant, and Solemn Simulacrum.
The trouble with Sakashima's Student is that his reduced cost will always be either UU or 1U (ninjitsu), which is strictly worse compared to Clone and Phantasmal Image (neither of which I choose to run), unless you gain some benefit from the 'enters tapped and attacking' clause. I'll make a note of the student (and Sakashima herself) for a 'MORE CLONES!' section, if someone really wants to include all the possible clone effects in a deck :).
Yea he will cost more than those two but I still like the idea of getting as many ways to abuse EtB triggers into the deck as I can. As long as you aren't comboing that turn you may as well be getting as many re-uses out of your EtB creatures as you can and clones are a great was to answer generals.
Yep, Dream Stalker is good, I should compile a list of similar creatures that can fill that role :).
That would be nice :).
Ah non-creature spells, there are so many good ones, and so little space in the deck.
FACT!
Wrath protection or recovery is important as Animar has a tendency to over extend. Creeping Renaissance is an interesting choice, as it can be used twice and can refill your hand with creatures in the late game after a wrath. Unfortunately it lacks some synergy because it's not a creature, the Eldrazi legends have a habit of shuffling the graveyard away and it's got a heavy mana investment. Honestly I think this might be a good contender to in the place of Tooth and Nail or Time Spiral, if you don't have access to them. It also would suit a meta call where Wrath of God effects are in every deck and graveyard hate isn't plentiful. Another similar effect to consider is Praetor's Counsel.
Agreed. It is at least a solid substitute for the budget player.
The wheel effects (Wheel of Fortune, Reforge the Soul, Memory Jar) are great draw cards in red and serve as hand disruption, but in green and blue there are more reliable draw cards that are less situational (if they don't match the pure volume of card draw). Slithermuse serves a similar function and is also a creature as is Regal Force, which could also do a similar thing much of the time in this creature heavy deck. If there was an EtB creature with a Wheel of Fortune effect I would play it! (Honorable mentions to Jace's Archivist and Dragon Mage)
Yea I think Slithermuse is a pretty underplayed card and is a strong substitute for the budget player. It can be strong on it's own whereas Regal Force needs bodies on the field to net a large number of cards. I'll probably throw one into my deck.
Sadly, I did not play my Animar list tonight at the LGS I play at. I let another player borrow it for round one and he was in the same pod as me. Unfortunately for him I convinced the table to shut him down before he could combo off. He did get to play a lot of stuff though before eventually losing to me as I had hit him with Karthus, Tyrant of Jund (My General) a turn earlier and then twice in one turn thanks to Hellkite Charger. Which was almost stopped by the Animar deck casting Venser, Shaper Savant, but the Edric player countered it for me to guarantee the kill. I eventually re-cast my Hellkite and a Bear Umbra for infinite combat.
(RE: Deadeye Navigator) I still feel he's an extra Cloudstone Curio/Erratic Portal/Crystal Shard etc... and allows you to re-use EtB triggers on about 20 of your creatures.
You are right, he does perform that role well. When I get my hands on Deadeye Navigator I will test him.
Speaking of EtB critters I think Wood Elves does make the cut if you're running all the dual lands cause then there are 2 duals and 2 shocks that it can grab and put into play un-tapped as opposed to the basics coming in tapped via Sakura-Tribe Elder, Farhaven Elf, Ondu Giant, and Solemn Simulacrum.
I have just got my hands on Wood Elves and shock lands I will update my deck list to reflect this. I think I took out the Ondu Giant. Unfortunately I don't have dual lands, and I'm reluctant to spend so much money on three lands when I could build other decks :(.
(RE: Sakashima's Student)Yea he will cost more than those two but I still like the idea of getting as many ways to abuse EtB triggers into the deck as I can. As long as you aren't comboing that turn you may as well be getting as many re-uses out of your EtB creatures as you can and clones are a great was to answer generals.
(RE: List of Shrieking Drake-like creatures)That would be nice :).
I'll work on some more lists of creatures to include clones and self bounce creatures and put it into the initial post. I'm not as taken with clones, I do see their value but the Student probably would be the 6th clone I'd run in a deck, and that's quite a high number of clones!
Sadly, I did not play my Animar list tonight at the LGS I play at. I let another player borrow it for round one and he was in the same pod as me. Unfortunately for him I convinced the table to shut him down before he could combo off. He did get to play a lot of stuff though before eventually losing to me as I had hit him with Karthus, Tyrant of Jund (My General) a turn earlier and then twice in one turn thanks to Hellkite Charger. Which was almost stopped by the Animar deck casting Venser, Shaper Savant, but the Edric player countered it for me to guarantee the kill. I eventually re-cast my Hellkite and a Bear Umbra for infinite combat.
Haha, lend your friend a deck and then convince everyone else to kill him fair enough, if you know what Animar does, he's always going to be a target, but that's mean!
Haha, lend your friend a deck and then convince everyone else to kill him fair enough, if you know what Animar does, he's always going to be a target, but that's mean!
I wasn't expecting anyone to be borrowing a deck from me. He usually plays his Maelstrom Wanderer deck but apparently he had left it at home and still came to the LGS for EDH (I wasn't much better though I forgot my trade-binder and playmats). So I figured it wouldn't be too difficult of a transition since he would still be in the same colors. I didn't really like the idea of him winning with my deck anyways because it would mean he would get more points for this week and that thought kept bugging me since he would be doing so with my cards.
With the way the pods are set up this month high scoring players are always put together so he and his other friend would've ended up in the same pod with me again, but his other friend was "all EDH-ed out after our 2 hour game" so they both ended up heading out before the 2nd round which managed to get me a couple of new opponents.
Wood Elves is strictly better than the Ondu Giant now that I have Forests in the form of Stomping Ground and Breeding Pool. Wood Elves speed up the deck by both putting the land into play untapped AND by lowering the curve slightly. Likewise Wooded Foothills can do the same as the Wood Elves, also putting lands into play untapped.
Alchemist's Refuge ended up losing out to Winding Canyons as a flash enabler because of it's UG cost to activate. This deck is very hungry for coloured mana, especially blue and green. Winding Canyons might only be able to give my creatures flash (as opposed to all nonland cards; barely a draw back in this creature heavy build) but I can spend RR to do it, and I'm more likely to have spare red mana.
Also for OmniDreamer, a list:
Creatures that can bounce themselves, or enable a loop with two creatures bouncing each other enable a large number of counters to be put on Animar with only one or two cards. I did a search (using these restrictions) and this is what I came up with (note that there are plenty of other creatures in that list, some of which may be good, but they don't facilitate the bouncing loops I'm specifically talking about here).
Self bouncers
Shrieking Drake - The best! Cheap, versatile and flying! U per +1/+1 counter.
Dream Stalker - Second best! Cheap, bounces any own permanent.
Man-o’-War - Third best! Bounces self, or any other creature.
Kiri-Onna - Enjoys a reduction in cost to U thanks to Animar, but slow to start.
Voidwielder - As Kiri-Onna, but less self bounce options.
Aether Adept - UU per +1/+1 counter after first cast.
Mist Raven - As Aether Adept, but higher initial costs (flying yay?)
Ok, so I've been toying with making this deck for a while and finally decided to test it out. OMG, it's a blast!! I've only had a chance to play one game but by turn 7, Animar had 13 counters on him and the ring to provide haste. Then, just for funsies i dropped the Kiki-Jiki, Mirror BreakerZealous Conscripts combo with Tooth and Nail and wiped out the whole table. muhaha... that was awesome. Thanks for the decklist!!!
Chord of Calling - Instant creature tutor, places the creature directly into play and can be cast for free with enough creatures on the battlefield to tap.
Wouldn't the cost still be GGG? Doesn't the convoke just reduce the colorless portion?
Nevermind. I failed to see the "or by one mana of that creature's color". :|
I keep coming across cards that look good for this guy! Verdant Eidolon is mana accel plus fixing (play Kiki-Jiki easily?) whilst being recursive when you play multicolored cards, animar being one of them automatically. Scuttlemutt can be free, and fixes like a creature- Darksteel Ingot, though is more vulnerable to the expected wipes.
I feel that my deck needs more recursion whenever I play it, though. I'm normally the kind of guy to play out of the graveyard at instant speed with Phyrexian Reclamation and the like. My stompies are nice, but its easy to hit a snag against three opponents, who often remove Animar when they have the chance, and people will exile Genesis religiously. As many strengths as the guy has, its hard to go straight stompy! I'm thinking that he is a combo general after all.
Verdant Eidolon looks interesting and could really help when I need multiple red or blue mana (Kiki-Jiki, Teferi, Magus of the Future). I'll make a note of her and next time I'm messing around with the deck see if I can make a spot.
Scuttlemutt: I generally avoid creature mana generators because they often die before they can even net one mana. Eidolon has the advantage of converting GG into 3 mana of any colour on the turn you play her. Darksteel Ingot might not be a creature, but it's an awesome mana stone :).
Animar certainly can go stompy, which is a great back up plan. But he is just so good at abusing combo it's hard not to include some combo elements even in an otherwise aggro strategy.
I will post my own build later as I've just started building/tinkering the deck and would like to get some ideas and comments.
A couple things I've seen so far tho:
1. Low coloured mana costs are crucial to getting value from animar. hamletback goliath, phyrexian ingester, indirik stomphowler etc. It isn't long before you will find you can play some huge 8cmc guy for less than that magus of the future you're holding.
2. The deck is vulnerable to sweepers and has to be built around this. Personally I'm looking at using small, card-advantage creatures to jack animar up a few notches... tribe elder, fierce empath, I even run sea-gate oracle. I am not sold on fecundity as I worry how much it'll help my opponents. Same goes for heartwood storyteller... I don't want to assist people in getting down to their answers :/
3. non-creature spells have to really pull their weight to be worth adding in. There are lots of fantastic spells out there, but you're moving against the flow of your general with every one of them that you add here. I think things like spin into myth and ray of command are valid picks. But leave insurrection and spelljack for another deck.
4. Red has very little to offer. My current list has the goliath, apocalypse hydra, and I think an ingot chewer as the only red cards in the whole thing besides animar... you just have easier/better picks generally in green or blue.
That's a fair call, I am arbitrary in my combo selection. Personally when I play Animar I never search up Kiki-Jiki and Pestermite. I actually haven't managed to get Kiki-Jiki to stay in play at all as he draws a lot of hate and is hard to cast for RRR. Given that I choose not to use the combo I should probably remove it from my deck, and yet I like the style of it, even if I don't use it (I agree, it is stupid, but that's how I like to play). As is, I tend not to play Animar too often with my play group because he is a combo deck, and I either win too quickly or get hated off the table, neither of which I find particularly enjoyable when I get opportunities to play with my friends.
As a deck-building exercise I want to make Animar as cutthroat as possible, but in practice I prefer playing a goofy hard(er) to construct combo centered around Psychosis Crawler and Glimpse of Nature. I do frown upon some of Animar's combo potential, but I also point out that those options are viable and if you choose to play them and enjoy it, all the more power to you. That is the purpose of my primer! To showcase possibilities, even if they don't suit my personal deck-building goals.
In the future (when some day I hope to have more time to dedicate to EDH) I want to include additional builds that make use of Animar's full potential.
I completely agree. Magus of the Future is clunky to cast. However his value when he makes it to the battlefield is amazing ... you can just keep casting those hamletback goliaths and indrik stomphowlers from the top of the deck. I don't suggest he's an auto-include, but he's certainly worth testing. (Also I hope you're running Duplicant before you run Phyrexian Ingester ... both would be fine, but FREE removal is better than U removal). Also it's there is a tension between mana efficiency (most value for least mana) and flexibility (more options for value more often) which is why I run Acidic Slime over the Indrik Stomphowler.
Fair enough. I don't mind risking it, because sometimes a little bit of group hug lets me avoid attention long enough to combo off (although this trickery quickly wears thin if you play often with the same people). Also if I can live the dream and get both Phyrexian Altar and Fecundity in play, often I can keep my chain casting going until I can combo off.
Again I agree with your premise. Personally I don't value Ray of Command or even Spin into Myth enough to play with Animar, but I have gone an all in creature strategy with the aim of winning via combo or huge aggro smash before my opponent can establish enough of a field to threaten me... the generals that I'd really want to Spin into Myth usually have protection of some kind before I have the mana to cast it anyway
I would play Imperial Recruiter if I had one. The most value you could gain from red would be using a land destruction theme, which is certainly possible, but really mean. If I was building 1 vs. 1 that would probably be the route I'd take with Animar. Red also offers haste enablers which are a way to counter sorcery speed sweepers.
Jester's deck is 1 vs. 1 and worth checking out for a different angle, althouth I have to contest the fact that any Animar deck is about "slow roll ramp into fatties." Animar doesn't do slow roll. Animar just gives you cheap cheap fatties.
It's been a few months now that I've had this deck built, and I've been slowly adding stuff. I loved that the combos were easy enough to interrupt that I didn't feel douchey.
But lately, as my friends decks have improved, the combos are too easy to hate out, and I find that I almost never win. (The most common game is my Animar vs Ghave and Mimeoplasm)
At this point in fact I am immediately the first target, and it seems like no matter what I do I get hated out first. So I'm making some changes to the deck to try to make it slightly more competitive, though I don't have a huge budget (and neither do my friends, to be fair).
Firstly, I almost never win via commander damage, as Animar is consistently being chump blocked or wiped from the board. I can't do much about the board wipes, save for playing more conservatively. But to handle the chump blocking (especially by ghave, who can chump block all day) I've decided to include a few trample enablers: Kessig Wolf Run, and Skarrg, the Rage Pits. I'm also debating including Deepchannel Mentor.
I've also found I'm a little short on removal, so I'm going to include Phyrexian Ingester alongside Duplicant (who is already in the deck).
Mana ramp and draw are a bit short (I don't have Primeval Titan for ramp or Sylvan Library for draw), so I've decided to include Rhystic Study, Verdant Eidolon, and Recurring Insight. Also, I've found that Guided Passage isn't too bad a draw spell in a deck where everything they can give you is a problem for them.
I've also decided to run Deceiver Exarch alongside Pestermite both for its utility and to increase the odds of drawing into the combo.
What do you think about these changes?
In a lighter note, the other day I found a combo in the deck I didn't know I had. Animar + Equilibrium + Priest of Urabrask + Warstorm Surge.
EDIT: You know, I just realized that that combo wouldn't work. Equilibrium says whenever you CAST a creature spell. I thought it was when they hit the battlefield. Well that sucks
Any thoughts on the other ideas?
I'm slowly leaning away from Guided Passage in the deck, as my smarter opponents will mostly give me mana ramp. The typical grab is Farhaven Elf, Darksteel Ingot, Mountain.
Still, leaves me 3 cards and some mana ahead, but I'm not sure that means Guided Passage warrants inclusion.
EDIT: Play of the day - I finally got a Primeval Titan, and it was so much fun the first game he hit the board. I had Cloned an opponents Avenger of Zendikar twice (by saccing it and recurring it again with Eternal Witness), leaving me with 14 0/1's, and an Oracle of Mul Daya on the board, Animar with a few counters on him, and Greater Good in hand. I draw into Psychosis Crawler, and I know that's how I want to win. So I hit my two land drops for oracle, revealing Primeval Titan on top, and making my tokens 2/3's. So I pass turn, leaving mana open for Draining Whelk. (I could've swung, but a lot of my tokens would've died to my opponents fatties) I end up countering a Wrath of God with Draining Whelk, and when it comes back to me the board hasn't changed much. I drop Primeval, grab two lands, then reveal two lands in a row for Oracle. My tokens are now 6/7's - I drop Psychosis Crawler for free, looking at everyone, then drop greater good - "I draw 84 cards, you guys lose 84 life?" Muahahaha. Feelsgoodman.
An addition I have made to the deck (but haven't yet got into play) is Steel Hellkite, I'll have to go through and update my initial entry (pretty sure I removed Dosan).
I will also try and find a spot of Zealous Conscripts probably cutting Pestermite for it (although I have to be careful not to raise my average CMC too high...) as it is more versatile while still comboing with Kiki-Jiki.
While I like the new UG ability land (it is strictly better than Winding Canyons) I find that I really need to be careful about colourless mana producing lands. The Cavern of Souls (Awesome land is awesome) however might find a spot even if I simply use it to protect my elementals
I'll take a look at your deck Janos. I'm glad to be helpful.
P.S. My comma key has stopped working. Sentence structure is suffering
- 1 Brutalizer Exarch
- 1 Mnemonic Wall
- 1 Pestermite
- 1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
- 1 Whirlpool Drake
- 1 Darksteel Ingot
- 1 Fecundity
- 1 Mystic Tutor
- 1 Phyrexian Altar
In:
+ 1 Mindclaw Shaman
+ 1 Raven Familiar
+ 1 Rummaging Goblin
+ 1 Soul of the Harvest
+ 1 Ulvenwald Tracker
+ 1 Zealous Conscripts
+ 1 Erratic Portal
+ 1 Ring of Kalonia
+ 1 Snap
Manabase changes - Out: (all the cycling lands!)
- 1 Lonely Sandbar
- 1 Remote Isle
- 1 Slippery Karst
- 1 Smouldering Crater
- 1 Tranquil Thicket
- 1 Karplusan Forest
- 1 Tolaria West
- 1 Vivid Creek
- 1 Vivid Grove
In:
+ 1 Alchemist's Refuge
+ 1 Breeding Pool
+ 1 Cascade Bluffs
+ 1 Hinterland Harbour
+ 1 Kessig Wolf Run
+ 1 Reflecting Pool
+ 1 Rootbound Crag
+ 1 Steam Vents
+ 1 Stomping Ground
Again I've upgraded the manabase (although Shock lands are proxies, eagerly awaiting RtR to be made real). All cycling lands have been removed, as I'm trying to get lands that enter the battlefield untapped, and honestly I never cycled the lands, because Animar is so mana greedy once you get on the creature chain. Tolaria West was meant to find Gaea's Cradle, but often the cost in terms of blue commitment of tutoring was too hard. I'm considering getting Crop Rotation instead, as a way of finding Gaea's Cradle.
Testing Ring of Kalonia, so far haven't got it out, but adding trample to Animar seems good and the bonus +1/+1 token once a turn isn't irrelevant depending on how often board wipes have gone off. Zealous Conscripts replace Pestermite as the Kiki-Jiki combo enabler, but is also more useful at any stage of the game except very early.
Regarding Cavern of Souls, I examined my creature types and discovered they were far too variable for this to be a reliable mana fixer, and Animar can't really afford to stock too many colourless producing lands. Interestingly Shaman was the most common creature type followed by Wizard. Elemental was sadly limited to only Animar and Mulldrifter.
Also Scavenge, the new spoiled Golgari mechanic from RtR will be pretty good for Animar as a way of accelerating after multiple board wipes. Puts a counter on him when you cast the creature, and puts MORE counters on after they go to the grave. I'm interested to see what else comes out with this mechanic. Some utility creatures plus Scavenge would be dreamy.
- I use Skarrg, the Rage Pits as another version of Kessig Wolf Run to also give Animar trample. He used to get chumped all day long, but w/ either one out, he just runs over whatever is out. The downside is this doesn't give colored mana so it's not great for early casting of Animar.
- As far as the M13 uncommon rings go, I go w/ the Ring of Evos Isle for the hexproof ability - just in case I can't find Swiftfoot Boots during the game. My deck revolves around Animar on the battlefield so I need another way to protect him.
- Predatory Hunger is something I saw somewhere else I think. I love having this in hand early because it just builds counters on Animar real quick without using all of our cheap creatures, and as such, it draws out early removal/board wipes because no one wants you dropping a fattie early.
At the moment I'm pushing what I feel comfortable with as colourless producing lands. I ended up choosing to only run Kessig Wolf Run instead of both Kessig and Skarrg, the Rage Pits, because the Wolf Run can win the game with any available creature (given enough mana) whereas the Rage Pits, while granting trample also, only benefit a few large creatures if Animar is for any reason unavailable. If you own the Rage Pits but no Wolf Run, it is a decent substitute or if you play a lot more big creatures where granting multiple creatures trample in a single attack phase is important and can afford the extra colourless producing land, run both.
Honestly I haven't yet tested ways to protect Animar from spot removal (edit: I lie, I have Willbender in the deck for this purpose). His built in protections are effective against the most prevalent spot removal, and his weakness to red burn is mitigated (at least in my meta) by a lack of red and the general lack of versatility of the fast burn spells which keep them out of the EDH format. The big problem in my meta is Wrath of God variants. I'll wait and see how the Ring of Kalonia goes before considering others, although as I don't run Swiftfoot Boots in this deck, I'd probably throw in the boots, or Elgaud Shieldmate, or even Darksteel Plate before Ring of Evos Isle.
In a meta with more spot removal, cards like Ring of Evos Isle gain a lot more value, but the cost of protection is a major downside. Can you afford to leave 2 up per turn to respond to removal? Perhaps Glamerdye or Whim of Volrath would still be a stronger choice in these circumstances? Both have the added benefit of granting not only protection but also evasion by altering Animar's natural protections.
I can see that this would build counters on Animar very quickly in multiplayer! That said personally I try to avoid cards that only add counters to Animar. There are a number of fairly easily enabled combos that put infinite counters on Animar, and all of the pieces do something else too. I'll keep this card in mind, it does have the advantage that it doesn't require you to over-commit board presence while still enabling casting fatties early at a very cheap cost. I also like that it can be political, setting your opponents back in tempo if they choose not to cast their own creatures in an attempt to stop enabling you from casting yours.
Edit: Updated strategy guides, still need to update 'How to play' the deck.
The non-creature slots are pretty competitive, I suppose I could look into replacing Rites of Flourishing, but I do like the extra land drops and card draw.
I'll get around to making a proxy and see how it plays out. I know Jester831 uses it in his 1v1 deck to good effect.
Now that the whole set has been spoiled, I thought I'd make an update regarding possible additions to my Animar, Soul of Elements deck list. The spoiler season has been quite disappointing in regards to Animar, and I hope that Gatecrash (with Gruul and Simic support) will provide more synergistic cards. Never-the-less below are my reflections on Return to Ravnica!
Please note that card links for RtR cards will be broken until the release date. Please check the spoilers here or the official visual spoiler.
Mechanics:
Return to Ravnica introduces five new mechanics and due to our URG wedge, we can gain access to them all; Detain in U, Overload in UR, Unleash in R, Populate in G and Scavenge in G. Unfortunately however with the exception of Scavenge none of them are particularly synergistic with Animar, Soul of Elements.
Detain – A lockdown mechanic found on permanents, it favours a slower control strategy. In mono blue and focusing on creatures with the ability we have:
Neither creature is particularly impressive for its cost, although both are evasive and have a single U in their cost. The problem is detain doesn’t do a whole lot and given we can use creatures to bounce, exile or destroy problem creatures, dedicating a slot to a (more often than not) less effective form of control seems inefficient.
Overload – As a spell based mechanic, it doesn’t mesh particularly well with a creature heavy deck. Can any find a spot in an Animar deck list? Personally I don’t think any of them are worth the cost (No discount? No deal!), but that said some of these spells are very splashy:
Unleash – Is a creature mechanic favouring an aggro strategy and so I expected that one or two creatures with this ability might find a slot in an aggro focused deck, however as my deck seeks to make use of enter the battlefield abilities and attack with multiple creatures (if going the aggro route) utility is worth way more than a single +1/+1 boost to a creature which comes with a drawback. Looking through the mono red unleash creatures, none seem good enough for Commander in general. The biggest, Chaos Imps, is simply a big beater, but with RR in the cost and only a modest colourless discount possible, it hardly seems worth the trouble.
Populate – A creature mechanic, but specifically to take advantage of tokens by creating copies of them. Animar doesn’t gain any advantage from tokens, few of the engines in the deck gain benefit from tokens. Kiki-Jiki is better at generating tokens. Unfortunately none of the populate effects are worthy of Animar.
Scavenge – A graveyard mechanic, found on creatures, that allows +1/+1 counters to be put on creatures. This mechanic has quite a bit of synergy with Animar. At the front end you get a creature, which puts a counter on Animar and gets the advantage of his mana reduction ability. Later in the game, these creatures can put counters onto Animar from the graveyard, potentially allowing him to combo out late game after a board wipe. That said, there isn’t much that is exciting among the mono green Scavenge creatures:
It’s unfortunate that black got cheaper scavenge costs (although from a colour pie perspective it makes sense), obviously the Golgari multicoloured creatures got the best scavenge costs and they’re not available to us. Of the scavenge creatures available to us I might consider Deadbridge Goliath and Golgari Decoy. Both are cheap enough to cast the first time around, and their Scavenge costs are reasonable for loading up the initial counters on Animar in the late game when your hand might be depleted of cheaper creatures. Sorcery speed on Scavenge affects it's utility as you're choosing between using the ability or casting creatures, but especially with the Goliath, this will often be the most efficient way of adding counters to Animar when he first gets on the board. The Decoy gains a lot of value in an aggro game plan, especially with haste enables, but by including Scavenge creatures, essentially you’re sacrificing immediate advantage through enter the battlefield abilities for late game recovery. Ultimately this has to be a meta call, are your combos always disrupted early? Are there a lot of Wrath of God effects in your playgroup? If you’re playing for the long game, these guys might be well worth the loss of initial utility.
Other Potential Additions:
Moving away from the mechanics specific to Return to Ravnica, these are the other cards I consider as candidates for a spot in an Animar deck list:
UUU Blue UUU
RRR Red RRR
GGG Green GGG
URU Multicolour RUR
X0 Artifacts & Lands XX
Really not that much to write home about. Let me know what you guys think! Anything I've missed or misevaluated? What are you going to put in your Animar decks from Return to Ravnica?
Primeval Titan, I have loved you ever since you were first spoiled in M11. I will miss you buddy.
Deck changes:
out
Primeval Titan - banned
in
Crop Rotation - next best way to find Gaea's Cradle in my opinion.
Edit: If you're looking for the RtR review for Animar, it is on page 3.
Another cool clone for this deck is Sakashima's Student since he can be hard cast for as cheap as UU or using his ninjutsu on an attacker with an EtB trigger will allow you to cast that creature again to get another use out of their trigger.
Dream Stalker is a decent substitute for Shrieking Drake if someone is having trouble finding a copy. It only costs more than the drake on the first cast if Animar has 0 counters. Also randomly its a solid blocker with 5 toughness.
Creeping Renaissance is a great recursion spell post wrath for this deck.
Wheel of Fortune is a nice card for reloading our hand after dumping our critters onto the board. Same goes for its kin Memory Jar and Reforge the Soul.
I have mentioned Deadeye Navigator in my "Why don't you play [x]?" section.
I would also like to add, that paying 1U for each reuse of EtB effects might be harder to pay than a creatures reduced casting cost. Blue mana has to be a carefully utilised resource as it is harder to produce in this deck compared to green mana (thank you Gaea's Cradle). Once Palinchron hits the field coloured mana restrictions are no longer as much of an issue, but Palinchron already combos with bounce and Animar to generate infinite mana, so Deadeye Navigator is simply a win more card in that scenario. Further more this deck doesn't really have any one thing that utilises infinite mana, so more ways of generating it seems reduntant. I like Deadeye Navigator, but in my opinion he is not an auto-include for the deck.
At this stage the only clone effects I run are Vesuvan Shapeshifter (for morph redundancy) and Phyrexian Metamorph (for potential mana free clone).
The trouble with Sakashima's Student is that his reduced cost will always be either UU or 1U (ninjitsu), which is strictly worse compared to Clone and Phantasmal Image (neither of which I choose to run), unless you gain some benefit from the 'enters tapped and attacking' clause. I'll make a note of the student (and Sakashima herself) for a 'MORE CLONES!' section, if someone really wants to include all the possible clone effects in a deck :).
Yep, Dream Stalker is good, I should compile a list of similar creatures that can fill that role :).
Ah non-creature spells, there are so many good ones, and so little space in the deck.
Wrath protection or recovery is important as Animar has a tendency to over extend. Creeping Renaissance is an interesting choice, as it can be used twice and can refill your hand with creatures in the late game after a wrath. Unfortunately it lacks some synergy because it's not a creature, the Eldrazi legends have a habit of shuffling the graveyard away and it's got a heavy mana investment. Honestly I think this might be a good contender to in the place of Tooth and Nail or Time Spiral, if you don't have access to them. It also would suit a meta call where Wrath of God effects are in every deck and graveyard hate isn't plentiful. Another similar effect to consider is Praetor's Counsel.
The wheel effects (Wheel of Fortune, Reforge the Soul, Memory Jar) are great draw cards in red and serve as hand disruption, but in green and blue there are more reliable draw cards that are less situational (if they don't match the pure volume of card draw). Slithermuse serves a similar function and is also a creature as is Regal Force, which could also do a similar thing much of the time in this creature heavy deck. If there was an EtB creature with a Wheel of Fortune effect I would play it! (Honorable mentions to Jace's Archivist and Dragon Mage)
Oops. I didn't have the spoiler open when I used Ctrl+F to search for Deadeye on the first page.
I still feel he's an extra Cloudstone Curio/Erratic Portal/Crystal Shard etc... and allows you to re-use EtB triggers on about 20 of your creatures.
Speaking of EtB critters I think Wood Elves does make the cut if you're running all the dual lands cause then there are 2 duals and 2 shocks that it can grab and put into play un-tapped as opposed to the basics coming in tapped via Sakura-Tribe Elder, Farhaven Elf, Ondu Giant, and Solemn Simulacrum.
Yea he will cost more than those two but I still like the idea of getting as many ways to abuse EtB triggers into the deck as I can. As long as you aren't comboing that turn you may as well be getting as many re-uses out of your EtB creatures as you can and clones are a great was to answer generals.
That would be nice :).
FACT!
Agreed. It is at least a solid substitute for the budget player.
Yea I think Slithermuse is a pretty underplayed card and is a strong substitute for the budget player. It can be strong on it's own whereas Regal Force needs bodies on the field to net a large number of cards. I'll probably throw one into my deck.
You are right, he does perform that role well. When I get my hands on Deadeye Navigator I will test him.
I have just got my hands on Wood Elves and shock lands I will update my deck list to reflect this. I think I took out the Ondu Giant. Unfortunately I don't have dual lands, and I'm reluctant to spend so much money on three lands when I could build other decks :(.
I'll work on some more lists of creatures to include clones and self bounce creatures and put it into the initial post. I'm not as taken with clones, I do see their value but the Student probably would be the 6th clone I'd run in a deck, and that's quite a high number of clones!
Haha, lend your friend a deck and then convince everyone else to kill him fair enough, if you know what Animar does, he's always going to be a target, but that's mean!
I wasn't expecting anyone to be borrowing a deck from me. He usually plays his Maelstrom Wanderer deck but apparently he had left it at home and still came to the LGS for EDH (I wasn't much better though I forgot my trade-binder and playmats). So I figured it wouldn't be too difficult of a transition since he would still be in the same colors. I didn't really like the idea of him winning with my deck anyways because it would mean he would get more points for this week and that thought kept bugging me since he would be doing so with my cards.
With the way the pods are set up this month high scoring players are always put together so he and his other friend would've ended up in the same pod with me again, but his other friend was "all EDH-ed out after our 2 hour game" so they both ended up heading out before the 2nd round which managed to get me a couple of new opponents.
Out:
- 1 Ondu Giant
- 1 Alchemist's Refuge
In:
+ 1 Wood Elves
+ 1 Wooded Foothills
Wood Elves is strictly better than the Ondu Giant now that I have Forests in the form of Stomping Ground and Breeding Pool. Wood Elves speed up the deck by both putting the land into play untapped AND by lowering the curve slightly. Likewise Wooded Foothills can do the same as the Wood Elves, also putting lands into play untapped.
Alchemist's Refuge ended up losing out to Winding Canyons as a flash enabler because of it's UG cost to activate. This deck is very hungry for coloured mana, especially blue and green. Winding Canyons might only be able to give my creatures flash (as opposed to all nonland cards; barely a draw back in this creature heavy build) but I can spend RR to do it, and I'm more likely to have spare red mana.
Also for OmniDreamer, a list:
Creatures that can bounce themselves, or enable a loop with two creatures bouncing each other enable a large number of counters to be put on Animar with only one or two cards. I did a search (using these restrictions) and this is what I came up with (note that there are plenty of other creatures in that list, some of which may be good, but they don't facilitate the bouncing loops I'm specifically talking about here).
Self bouncers
Bouncers that work together
Honestly there are less good ones than I expected
WUB Sharuum the Hegemon, the Destroyer of Darksteel
BGW Teneb, the Harvester, my Pimped Out Reanimator
GUB The Mimeoplasm Ooze-Mill
GWU Rafiq the Exalted
Question... in your primer you say:
Wouldn't the cost still be GGG? Doesn't the convoke just reduce the colorless portion?
Nevermind. I failed to see the "or by one mana of that creature's color". :|
WUB Sharuum the Hegemon, the Destroyer of Darksteel
BGW Teneb, the Harvester, my Pimped Out Reanimator
GUB The Mimeoplasm Ooze-Mill
GWU Rafiq the Exalted