MTG Salvation

"One beginning, many paths."
—Vannifar

Untapping

My personal suite of untappers includes ones that mostly have once off effects that trigger on entering the battlefield. However there are a range of creatures, artifacts and enchantments that can untap Vannifar. Many of these cards are much more suited to get incremental value from Vannifar and your creature base each turn.

Cast triggers
Mirran Spy, Chakram Retriever, Paradox Engine.

Enter the battlefield or dies triggers
Deceiver Exarch, Bounding Krasis, Pestermite, Breaching Hippocamp, Great Oak Guardian.
Thornbite Staff, Intruder Alarm, Retreat to Coralhelm.

Activate
Creature; Quirion Ranger, Scryb Ranger, Galvanic Alchemist, Vigean Graftmage, Disciple of the Ring.
Enchantment Aura; Instill Energy, Nature's Chosen, Crab Umbra, Immobilizing Ink, Singing Bell Strike, Aura of Dominion, Freed from the Real, Pemmin's Aura, Psychic Overload, Sinking Feeling.
Enchantment; Thassa's Ire, Mind Over Matter, Telekinetic Bonds.
Artifact; Lapis Lazuli Talisman, Malachite Talisman, Sword of the Paruns.
Planeswalker; Kiora, Master of the Depths, Jace, Ingenious Mind-Mage, Nissa, Genesis Mage, Teferi, Temporal Archmage.

Tap to activate
Creature; Trickster Mage, Kiora's Follower, Aphetto Alchemist, Seeker of Skybreak, Stonybrook Angler, Rimewind Taskmage, Tideforce Elemental, Niblis of the Breath, Vizier of Tumbling Sands, Puppeteer, Vedalken Anatomist, Fatestitcher, Tidewater Minion, Patron of the Orochi.
Artifact; Jandor's Saddlebags, Magewright's Stone, Puppet Strings, Staff of Domination, Thousand-Year Elixir, Umbral Mantle.

Attack trigger
Curse of Bounty, Curse of Inertia, Ghostly Touch.

Sacrifice
Teardrop Kami, Riptide Chronologist.

Other effect
Cacophodon

Tribal
Wirewood Symbiote, Faces of the Past, Captain of the Mists, Merrow Reejerey, Riptide Chronologist, Teller of Tales.

You'll notice just how many options you have in Simic for untapping creatures. You have no shortage of options. It's just a case of how many and of what variety?
A pivotal question you should be asking yourself if you want to build a deck that isn't so reliant on her being in play and active, is "what do these untapper cards do for you as well?".

As a general rule of thumb, those that can give you multiple uses a turn tend to be more powerful. But they also might be harder to activate or trigger.

These cards represent ways to untap Vannifar without needing to spend additional mana on the triggers or activation's, that also can be used multiple times in a turn;
Chakram Retriever, Paradox Engine, Intruder Alarm, Thornbite Staff, Retreat to Coralhelm, Mind Over Matter, Faces of the Past.
These type of cards can represent that most broken ways of using Prime Speaker Vannifar if wanting to get potentially lots of uses in a single turn.

Cards that untap Vannifar but do require mana that can be used multiple times in a turn;
Disciple of the Ring, Galvanic Alchemist, Vigean Graftmage.
Aura of Dominion, Crab Umbra, Freed from the Real, Immobilizing Ink, Pemmin's Aura, Psychic Overload, Singing Bell Strike, Sinking Feeling.
Telekinetic Bonds, Thassa's Ire
Lapis Lazuli Talisman, Malachite Talisman, Sword of the Paruns, Staff of Domination.

These type of cards require investing mana, but can be used to untap Vannifar multiple times in a turn. Most of them however are non-creatures, which means that you can't search for them with Prime Speaker Vannifar ability.

The ones that are creatures, Disciple of the Ring, Galvanic Alchemist, Vigean Graftmage, can potentially be super powerful as you have the ability to actually search for them with Prime Speaker Vannifar. Galvanic Alchemist certainly will give you unlimited activation's of Vannifar, depending on how much mana you have available.

Tap to activate cards can usually only naturally be used once each turn, and if they are a creature will have summoning sickness as well, so won't be able to be used for a full turn. However a lot of these are creatures so can be searched with Prime Speaker Vannifar ability.
This then leads me into the next section, and that's about how to go about giving your creatures haste.

Haste

If you have a card that gives your creatures haste, then you'll be able to do a few additional sequences to help you out.

Obviously getting Prime Speaker Vannifar with haste means you can look to get value immediately or even potentially win on the spot.

If you have the ability to give your creatures haste, then the tap ability creatures become much better. However Simic is not know for it's ability to give creatures haste. There are not a lot of ways to do this.
But I'll list them, as it could be a very important plan for your build.

Enchantments; Concordant Crossroads.
Artifacts; Thousand-Year Elixir, Akroma's Memorial.
Equipment; Haunted Cloak, Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Sword of Vengeance.
Creatures; Vitaspore Thallid, Surrak, the Hunt Caller.
Land; Hall of the Bandit Lord.

As a slightly more off the wall idea, you can make copies of creatures to then have haste.
Helm of the Host, Mimic Vat, Minion Reflector.

So one thing you should always be keeping in mind is that the heart of Prime Speaker Vannifar is that she is a creature tutor, so you are really looking at creatures as much as possible for giving you particular abilities/advantages.
The only creatures that can grant haste in Simic are Surrak, the Hunt Caller and Vitaspore Thallid. Both of them have stipulations.

Now that is not to say that you can't build around them in some way, and I certainly have thought about these cards a reasonable amount to try and potentially leverage them.

Surrak, the Hunt Caller requires having creatures you control have total power 8 or greater, and can only give one creature haste at the beginning of combat on your turn.
If you can set him up with say Patron of the Orochi, then you can untap potentially other creatures in Kiora's Follower and Seeker of Skybreak.

Vitaspore Thallid requires that you sacrifice a Saporling. Although there are Saporling tribal decks, normally you'd find them in Golgari color.
One little trick you can do is use Tukatongue Thallid to sacrifice with Prime Speaker Vannifar to get Vitaspore Thallid. This way you'll have a Saporling to sacrifice to give a creature haste for a turn.

There are also a number of ways to get the non-creature haste cards through proxy searching.
Deadeye Quartermaster can get Haunted Cloak, Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Sword of Vengeance.
Trophy Mage can get Thousand-Year Elixir.
Treasure Mage can get get Akroma's Memorial.
Trinket Mage can get Expedition Map, which can get Hall of the Bandit Lord.
Spellseeker can get Crop Rotation, which can get Hall of the Bandit Lord.
Noble Benefactor can get them all.

Value

Well now you have all these lovely ways of untapping Prime Speaker Vannifar but what are you looking to do with all of them?

Now what's important to really know is that if you're sacrificing creatures to go up the chain, then when it's time to end your turn, you still only have that one creature in play.
That might seem obvious, but it's really a case of how much value did you get along the way?

If you're not looking to simply combo off for a one turn win, then there are going to be elements where you either want to give yourself advantages in maybe the form of additional mana or card advantage. You might also choose things that disrupt your opponents to make the game harder for them.

Land ramp

I'm just going to list some additional creatures that can land ramp you that are not in my primer, without their ability needing to sacrifice themselves to get the effect. The reason is that you really want to be using Prime Speaker Vannifar to chain up through creatures to get value.
So cards like Sakura-Tribe Elder or Burnished Heart are not as good in a Vannifar build as they might be in others.
One Drop; Veteran Explorer
Two Drop; Primal Druid, Viridian Emissary.
Three Drop; Wood Elves, Elvish Rejuvenator, Farhaven Elf, Fertilid, Ondu Giant, Yavimaya Dryad, Yavimaya Granger.
Four Drop; Solemn Simulacrum, World Shaper, Quirion Trailblazer, Wild Wanderer.
Five Drop; Seedguide Ash, Silverglade Elemental.
Six Drop; Ulvenwald Hydra, Realm Seekers, Avatar of Growth.

There are also creatures that put lands into your hand. In general these are way less useful than the ones that actually put them into play. Personally I avoid them in almost any deck (except for Nissa, Vastwood Seer).
One Drop; Treefolk Harbinger.
Two Drop; Borderland Explorer, Gatecreeper Vine, Loam Larva, Sylvan Ranger, Satyr Wayfinder.
Three Drop; Borderland Ranger, Civic Wayfinder, District Guide, Jungle Wayfinder, Nissa, Vastwood Seer, Pilgrim's Eye, Skittering Surveyor, Yavimaya Elder.

Also cards that put additional lands into play are always strong for this approach, and in conjunction with cards that allow you to play lands off the top of your library; Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Courser of Kruphix, Oracle of Mul Daya, Magus of the Future. Exploration, Gaea's Touch, Future Sight.

The reason that cards that allow you to play lands off top of library are good in a Prime Speaker Vannifar build is that having the ability to shuffle your library each time you use her, means that you get another chance of having lands on top (or not lands if wanting that as well).

Playing extra lands can help with 'landfall' triggers and I was pretty close to playing Azusa, Lost but Seeking in my deck because she allows you to potentially put extra lands into play off cards like Realm Seekers.
In builds that have lots of draw elements, being able to play additional lands is helpful.

Back to Compendium Content

Mana
So are lands the only way to get more mana?
There are a myriad of other ways to get additional mana in Simic. But I'm just going to focus on creatures, as this is the bread and butter of Prime Speaker Vannifar ability to get you to those.

Any creature that can tap for mana is going to help you, especially if you have other cards that can untap multiple creatures. Paradox Engine and Intruder Alarm being the premium examples of this.

I personally play a lot of one drop creatures that provide mana, as they are critical to making it easy to combo, as well as just good to speed up the deck, and be more resilient against Stax and mass land destruction.

But there are certainly some great creatures that provide mana, and I'll list the ones that I think are premium;
One Drop; Birds of Paradise, Arbor Elf, Elvish Mystic, Fyndhorn Elves, Llanowar Elves, Joraga Treespeaker, Boreal Druid.
Two Drop; Bloom Tender, Lotus Cobra, With enough elves; Priest of Titania, Elvish Archdruid.
Three Drop; Rishkar, Peema Renegade, Selvala, Heart of the Wilds,
Four Drop; Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix, Stone-Seeder Hierophant, Wirewood Channeler, Karametra's Acolyte.
Five Drop;
Six Drop; Regal Behemoth,
Seven Drop;
Eight Drop; Patron of the Orochi, Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger.

Stone-Seeder Hierophant is interesting in that you can potentially combine it with the already mentioned chain of land ramp creatures enabling landfall each time you use Prime Speaker Vannifar to ramp. You could even use it with Wirewood Lodge or Minamo, School at Water's Edge to get a few more activation's out of Vannifar. You could team this up with Lotus Cobra to get guaranteed mana to activate the the lands to keep untapping Vannifar. In this way it's essentially the same as Retreat to Coralhelm or Tideforce Elemental landfall triggers.

Myr Moonvessel, Hidden Herbalists, Cathodion, Su-Chi are unique in that you can chain through them to gain mana.

A non-creature mana element that has a lot of potential is Earthcraft. Because you are chaining through creatures, each time you use Prime Speaker Vannifar you'll get to make a mana. This can certainly help to setup combos and just general game play.
Cryptolith Rite and Song of Freyalise are similar but require you have haste in order to benefit from them if looking to use them the same turn as you're chain through creatures, so not nearly as good.

Back to Compendium Content

Draw
Now one element that you have to think about with Prime Speaker Vannifar is that any cards that you draw into your hand, are not going to be available for you to search with Prime Speaker Vannifar. So in this respect it's a bit of a double-edged sword.
But it's never a terrible thing to draw cards, especially if you have the deck build to support it.

Once again it's important to identify creatures that can get you card draw, rather than other card types due to..you guess it Prime Speaker Vannifar ability.

There are heaps of what I'd call nickle and dime draw creatures like Elvish Visionary. They are a bit too numerous to mention, so I'm only going to point out cards that should result in getting multiple cards.
There are some that trigger on enter the battlefield or leaves play, and often these are the best for guaranteeing value;
Slithermuse, Nantuko Cultivator, Skullmulcher, Prime Speaker Zegana, Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign, Regal Force, Sandstone Oracle, Tishana, Voice of Thunder, Sphinx of Uthuun, Inspired Sphinx.

These ones have minimal draw but are solid none the less; Masked Admirers, Mulldrifter. Masked Admirers can be retrieved from graveyard after sacrificing.

There are other cards that require tapping for activation, so you need them to stick around for an entire turn, or have haste;
Jace's Archivist, Magus of the Jar.

Some powerful creatures that need to remain in play potentially over the course of turns but should net you a lot of card draw;
Nezahal, Primal Tide, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, Soul of the Harvest, Tatyova, Benthic Druid, Consecrated Sphinx, Edric, Spymaster of Trest.

Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur certainly represents a creature you'd be happy to chain into and then pass the turn!

I have some interesting ones that put cards back into library from your hand. The drakes can be a bit random, but it does give you options if you have cards in your hand that you would prefer to search up with Prime Speaker Vannifar.
Riverwise Augur, Whirlpool Drake, Whirlpool Rider.

Tap to activate card advantage
Now I asked the question earlier, "what do these untapper cards do for you as well?". In the absence of Prime Speaker Vannifar, you might be able to untap lots of mana creatures, but then what do you do with the mana?

Having some creatures that can gain you advantages might be helpful if you're running a number of untap creature sources. Some great options are;
Ulvenwald Tracker, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Merfolk Looter, Yisan, the Wanderer Bard, Survivor of the Unseen, Arcane Artisan, Glissa Sunseeker, Cephalid Broker, Empress Galina, Willbreaker, Azami, Lady of Scrolls, Endbringer, Arcanis the Omnipotent.
You can target opponents creatures with untap abilities to potentially use Willbreaker to steal them.

Cards back into library

Because of the nature of wanting to search your library to put creatures directly into play, actually having the creature cards in your hand is a detriment. So really this deck doesn't want to draw cards at all past the point of putting some lands into play, and have a mana creature or two.

Cards that can help you put cards back into your library from your hand are; Brainstorm, Scroll Rack, (Survival of the Fittest with Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre/Kozilek, Butcher of Truth).

One of the biggest problems with a deck is that you might have one of the cards you want to Prime Speaker Vannifar into, unfortunately in your hand or graveyard.
With Survival of the Fittest you can discard those creatures to get Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre or Kozilek, Butcher of Truth.
You can then shuffle them into your library when you discard the Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre/Kozilek, Butcher of Truth.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre also represent removal against hoser cards like Torpor Orb, Hushwing Gryff, in that it's on 'cast trigger'.

Searching library

Wait. Are we not already searching our library a millions times? Well yes, but hey you can layer more to go with that if you really want to. I mean opponents have already resigned themselves to talking about the weather while you spend your time riffling and shuffling your deck.

There is a suite of creatures..that well search for other stuff. I've already mentioned all the land centered ones but there are others.

I've added a section Creature combinations, which has a comprehensive list of potential infinite or strong synergy combinations in Simic. You will see that I've listed creatures that can search for various cards needed for the combos.
The following list of creatures features heavily in that section as well.

Noble Benefactor can get you any card in your deck. A very dangerous card to use, but it might be something you can look to use on a turn you're looking to win and maybe sitting behind a Dosan the Falling Leaf or Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. The problem is that even if you get opponents all tapped out, they could potentially get cards like Force of Will or Pact of Negation to counter whatever you've search for.

Grozoth can get you as many converted mana cost 9 cards in Simic as you want.

Searching for Creatures
Some are enter the battlefield or dies, which as you've probably come to see is the most reliable and instant way of getting value;
Into play; Woodland Bellower, Protean Hulk, Yisan, the Wanderer Bard.
Into hand; Fierce Empath.
Top of library; Mwonvuli Beast Tracker, Brutalizer Exarch, Momir Vig, Simic Visionary.

Searching for Artifacts
Need to tap; Arcum Dagsson, Kuldotha Forgemaster.
Into hand; Trinket Mage, Trophy Mage, Treasure Mage, Deadeye Quartermaster.

The "Mages" feature heavily in the Creature combinations section as they can give you access to so many cards.
You can also proxy through other cards to get particular card types;

For example Trinket Mage can get Expedition Map, allowing you to get any land in your library.

The "blind spot" for the Mages are 2,4,5 costing artifacts.

Deadeye Quartermaster can get equipment artifacts, of which there are some that combo with Prime Speaker Vannifar;
Thornbite Staff, Illusionist's Bracers,
Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Skullclamp,, Helm of the Host.

Searching for Instants or Sorcery
Spellseeker can get instant or sorcery converted mana 2 or less. One of the most versatile creatures in a Prime Speaker Vannifar, she can get you a lot of cards that will help your strategies.

Kaho, Minamo Historian can get instants but has summoning sickness and requires tapping for activation, so will need to wait a full turn or have haste;

It must be noted that Prime Speaker Vannifar herself cannot do anything at instant speed, so your forms of disruption in opponents turns, are solely based on what you might have in hand, or something you already have in play.
With Spellseeker and Kaho, Minamo Historian you can look to disrupt opponents with instant cards.
Kaho, Minamo Historian with haste and even further untappers (for example Kiora's Follower) can be potent with some disruptive or protective elements.
You can even sacrifice Kaho, Minamo Historian to Prime Speaker Vannifar after all the spells have been cast, so no wastage there.

Transmute
There are some transmute creature cards;
Drift of Phantasms, Ethereal Usher.

Spellseeker can also get; Dizzy Spell, Muddle the Mixture.

What I figured out you could do is search into them with Prime Speaker Vannifar and then you can use a graveyard retrieval card like Eternal Witness, Skullwinder, Greenwarden of Murasa to get them into your hand. This way you have access to any card in your deck at that converted mana cost.
I was going to use Drift of Phantasms to search mainly for Intruder Alarm.

If you could imagine sequencing something like this;
Two Drop creature -> Drift of Phantasms -> Breaching Hippocamp -> Chakram Retriever -> Greenwarden of Murasa.
The Greenwarden of Murasa can get the Drift of Phantasms and then you can transmute for 1UU to get Intruder Alarm.
I had this in the original deck list, but as I mentioned my need for Intruder Alarm is much less, so didn't need this combination in the end.
But it's worth considering in a build that can really abuse it.

You'll be able to find almost any way of proxying to get ANY card in your deck with Prime Speaker Vannifar, which is why she is so powerful.

Tribal searching
Elvish Harbinger, Skyshroud Poacher, Wirewood Herald.
Faerie Harbinger, Forerunner of the Heralds, Merrow Harbinger, Seahunter.
Vizier of the Anointed.

Graveyard retrieval

One of the more versatile abilities you can combine with Prime Speaker Vannifar, is to use the following creatures to get back cards from your graveyard for reuse or get back in the face of disruption.

Any; Eternal Witness, Skullwinder, Greenwarden of Murasa.
Creature; Sylvan Hierophant, Genesis, Grave Sifter, Deadwood Treefolk, Paleoloth, Moldgraf Monstrosity.
Instant/Sorcery; Archaeomancer, Mnemonic Wall, Salvager of Secrets, Scrivener.
Snapcaster Mage, Torrential Gearhulk.
Artifact; Junk Diver, Myr Retriever, Scrap Trawler, Workshop Assistant.
Land; Titania, Protector of Argoth, Turntimber Sower, Ramunap Excavator, Tilling Treefolk.
Opponents; Diluvian Primordial, Jace's Mindseeker.

One of the biggest reasons Prime Speaker Vannifar is so hard to permanently disrupt (besides keep removing her), is that you can get cards back that might have been put into your graveyard via removal or whatever.
So if an opponents removes a key card like Intruder Alarm, then you can just look to get it back with sacrificing a creature into Eternal Witness, Skullwinder, Greenwarden of Murasa.
So having access to a Two Drop creature into -> Eternal Witness to get the Intruder Alarm back.
If you setup your deck to be able chain from any converted mana cost (like my primer deck), it will always mean that you can get it back with any creature in play and Prime Speaker Vannifar. Scary, very scary, for opponents that is.

Reusing your graveyard
Alright so this one is realistically going to be more about style points, but there are situations where you might have gone through much of your creature base from library and are wanting them back into your library to search up again with Prime Speaker Vannifar.

Now I've already mentioned in my primer how to use Survival of the Fittest along with Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre to shuffle graveyards back into my library.

But there are some creatures that can do this as well;
Loaming Shaman, Barishi, Rooting Kavu, Elvish Soultiller, Nantuko Tracer.

So it's possible to play one or two of these so that you have the options of your creatures again. Some of your creature effects are going to be so special and not achievable from other sources that you can really look to leverage these to help out in that way.

Copying creatures

Not only will there be a lot of lines to get value, but also combination play where you can copy creatures already on the board.
The suite of creatures that can copy other creatures, gives you access to potentially much cheaper sources of convereted mana cost to chain up higher, or even chain down lower if necessary.

Two Drop; Jwari Shapeshifter, Phantasmal Image, Renegade Doppelganger, Shapesharer, Naban, Dean of Iteration.
Three Drop; Arcane Artisan, Cryptoplasm, Mirror Image.
Four Drop; Altered Ego, Bramble Sovereign, Clone, Gigantoplasm, Phyrexian Metamorph, Sakashima the Impostor, Sakashima's Student, Stunt Double, Unstable Shapeshifter, Vizier of Many Faces.
Five Drop; Body Double, Mercurial Pretender, Vesuvan Doppelganger, Vesuvan Shapeshifter, Quicksilver Elemental.
Six Drop; Progenitor Mimic.
Seven Drop; Quicksilver Gargantuan.

Non-creature ways of copying;
Panharmonicon, ...

Disruption

Because I have a combo centered deck, I don't play too many different disruptive elements with creatures, and in fact use some instants instead just to avoid hosers like Torpor Orb, Hushwing Gryff, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Aven Mindcensor, Containment Priest.

You can see if you are trying to just use all creatures for removal than certain cards will get you in a Prime Speaker Vannifar focused build.

Simic is essentially known for is enchantment and artifact removal in Green, and for elements of returning cards to hand in Blue. Green does have non-creature removal, and Blue does have some creature removal, but mainly centered around returning cards to hand or countering spells on the stack.

Most of the following have enter the battlefield or dies effects.
Non-creature removal; Reclamation Sage, Manglehorn, Viridian Corrupter, Viridian Shaman, Uktabi Orangutan, Wickerbough Elder, Acidic Slime, Conclave Naturalists, Indrik Stomphowler, Woodripper, Bane of Progress, Destructor Dragon, Terastodon, Woodfall Primus.
Creature removal; Duplicant, Phyrexian Ingester.
Silklash Spider, Aerie Ouphes, Whiptongue Hydra, Tornado Elemental.
Somberwald Stag, Affectionate Indrik, Temur War Shaman, Foe-Razer Regent.
Floodgate, Triskelavus, Triskelion, Grim Poppet.
Stone-Tongue Basilisk.
Creature stealing; Gilded Drake, Sower of Temptation, Keiga, the Tide Star.
Non-land removal; Meteor Golem.
Return to hand; Venser, Shaper Savant, Llawan, Cephalid Empress, Profaner of the Dead, Riftwing Cloudskate, Aethersnipe, Dream Eater, Galecaster Colossus, Scourge of Fleets, Kederekt Leviathan.
Hand disruption; Vendilion Clique, Thought-Knot Seer.
Tapping permanents; Frost Titan
Graveyard hate; Deathgorge Scavenger, Saprazzan Bailiff, Mirror Golem.
Shutting off specific cards; Phyrexian Revoker, Alhammarret, High Arbiter.

Right so there are a lot more disruptive creatures, but they do not have enter the battlefield effects. This means that you would search for them, with the intention of probably just leaving them in play or sacrificing them to get the abilities.
This indicates that you are not chaining further with those creatures.

Non-creature removal; Caustic Caterpillar, Viridian Zealot, Thrashing Brontodon, Trygon Predator, Sylvok Replica, Glissa Sunseeker, Nullmage Shepherd.
Creature removal; Ulvenwald Tracker, Polukranos, World Eater, Arashi, the Sky Asunder.
Non-land removal; Steel Hellkite.
Creature stealing; Dominating Licid, Cytoplast Manipulator, Beguiler of Wills, Willbreaker, Empress Galina, Djinn of Infinite Deceits.
Counterspells; Voidmage Prodigy, Daring Apprentice, Ertai, Wizard Adept, Glen Elendra Archmage, Nullstone Gargoyle.
Graveyard hate; Heap Doll, Scavenging Ooze, Grazing Kelpie.
Return to hand; Tradewind Rider.
Tapping creatures; Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor.
Other; Mistcaller, Hope of Ghirapur.

I've already mentioned how you can use Kaho, Minamo Historian or Spellseeker to search for instant card disruption.
It's important to know how you can use particular cards to search for and reuse particular cards that might not be creatures.
For example Snapcaster Mage and Torrential Gearhulk can be used on some instants that might be disruptive.
You might have searched with Spellseeker or Kaho, Minamo Historian to get Nature's Claim for example.
With it in the graveyard you could have a myriad of creatures to get it back for reuse. Look at the graveyard retrieval section for all the creature to return something like that.
For example you can potentially use a card like that to setup the equivalent of mass artifact/enchantment removal on opponents.
Let's say you have the means to keep untapping Prime Speaker Vannifar.
Eternal Witness -> Archaeomancer -> Mnemonic Wall -> Greenwarden of Murasa.
Each time getting the Nature's Claim back from graveyard to destroy the most potent threats.

In this same sort of approach you can use creatures with countering abilities with the flash, by searching for them before hand.
Draining Whelk, Mystic Snake, Frilled Mystic.
Now this seems counter-intuitive (bam pun), because you would be using Prime Speaker Vannifar activation's to set it up, for what would be no value at first.
For example you could use Fierce Empath to get Draining Whelk.
Or something like put Mystic Snake into play off Prime Speaker Vannifar (yes at sorcery speed and no value) and just sacrifice it straight away to chain up into say Grave Sifter to get the Mystic Snake into your hand.

Protection

Once again I'm going to focus more on potential creatures you can use, but there is nothing to do with chaining creatures, they need to remain in play to give you protection.

Prevent targeting;
Sylvan Safekeeper, Siren Stormtamer, Spellskite, Eladamri, Lord of Leaves, Kira, Great Glass-Spinner.
Combat;
Spore Frog, Spike Weaver, Silent Arbitor, Endbringer, Hornet Queen, Stormtide Leviathan.
Life;
Platinum Angel, Platinum Emperion, Elderscale Wurm.

This section is a work in progress, I am still working on various sections, more to come..

Offence

CHAAAAARGE!!! You can style your deck to be more aggressive using Prime Speaker Vannifar to create large hordes and buffing creatures if that's your style.
One Drop; ..needs research..
Two Drop; ..needs research..
Three Drop; ..needs research..
Four Drop; Bloodspore Thrinax, Brawn, Chameleon Colossus, Champion of Rhonas, Ezuri, Claw of Progress, Fangren Firstborn, Forgotten Ancient, Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma, Gorm the Great, Lumbering Satyr, Master of the Wild Hunt, Master of Waves, Nylea, God of the Hunt,
Five Drop; Ambush Commander, Bellowing Tanglewurm, Creeperhulk, Cultivator of Blades, Deranged Hermit, Docent of Perfection, Kessig Cagebreakers, Loyal Guardian, Mycoloth, Putrefax, Ridgescale Tusker, Sage of Ancient Lore, Tendershoot Dryad, Titania, Protector of Argoth, Verdurous Gearhulk.
Six Drop; Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor, Aggressive Mammoth, Essence of the Wild, Great Oak Guardian, Kamahl, Fist of Krosa, Nacatl War-Pride, Pathbreaker Ibex, Rampaging Baloths, Sun Quan, Lord of Wu, Thunderfoot Baloth, Vigor.
Seven Drop; Avenger of Zendikar, Caller of the Pack, Deceiver of Form, Giant Adephage, Myr Battlesphere, Siege Behemoth.
Eight Drop; Craterhoof Behemoth, End-Raze Forerunners, Liege of the Tangle, Living Hive, Stonehoof Chieftain, Symbiotic Wurm, Verdant Force.
This section is a work in progress, I am still working on various sections, more to come..

Multiple creatures

Alright so you might get a setup where you can get multiple activation's from Prime Speaker Vannifar each turn and be able to chain creatures together. But unless you have further creatures to put into play from your hand, you'll only be able to chain through one creature. When it's time to end your turn, you still only have that one creature in play, even if you did some cool stuff along the way.

In my primer I've already showed you how you can use Woodland Bellower and Protean Hulk to get other creature(s) into play, that will allow you to start chaining from a lower costing creature.
For those that are looking to really get value, it's important to identify where you can potentially get multiple sources of creatures. It's also very important for combo lines, and I've detailed a lot of these already.

Let's look at all our graveyard retrieval cards again. These can also be use to get addtional creature if you sacrifice them to chain into others.

Any; Eternal Witness, Skullwinder, Greenwarden of Murasa.
Creature; Sylvan Hierophant, Genesis, Grave Sifter, Paleoloth, Moldgraf Monstrosity.
Instant/Sorcery; Archaeomancer, Mnemonic Wall, Salvager of Secrets, Scrivener.
Snapcaster Mage, Torrential Gearhulk.
Artifact; Myr Retriever, Junk Diver, Workshop Assistant, Scrap Trawler.
Land; Turntimber Sower, Ramunap Excavator, Tilling Treefolk, Titania, Protector of Argoth.

You can chain Scryb Ranger into Eternal Witness and get the Scryb Ranger. Now you have two creatures from one card. You can cast the Scryb Ranger and use it to untap Vannifar to keep chaining up.
You can do the same with Skullwinder and Greenwarden of Murasa.

The others are a lot trickier because they are more conditional on what else has gone on to get you to that point.
Genesis is going to require (probably) passing the turn.
Grave Sifter needs to be worked in with creature types.
The ones that return instants or sorcery have to be specifically worked with some sort of spell which searches for creatures, like Chord of Calling or Summoner's Pact.

Another way of getting multiple creatures is through creating tokens, which represent a zero costing creatures. So with that in mind, getting tokens into play means that you have to be geared to chain from a low-casting cost.

There are a lot of them, so I'm going to present the ones that I feel are the best at various converted mana cost so that you know your options as you potentially chain up.
Token creatures;
One Drop; Blisterpod, Tukatongue Thallid.
Two Drop; Brindle Shoat.
Three Drop; Turntimber Sower, Yavimaya Sapherd
Four Drop; Reef Worm, Whirler Rogue
Five Drop; Mitotic Slime, Meloku the Clouded Mirror, Cultivator of Blades, Titania, Protector of Argoth.
Six Drop; Rampaging Baloths, Brood Monitor, Drowner of Hope.
Seven Drop; Avenger of Zendikar, Hornet Queen
Eight Drop; Symbiotic Wurm.
Eleven Drop; Worldspine Wurm.

If you create a token that is a copy of another creature, then that token will also have the converted mana cost of that creature.
Bramble Sovereign, Progenitor Mimic.
Faerie Artisans will be completely random what you might end up with in your turn, but represents higher converted mana costs.

Alright so we have access to creating lots of token creatures, but what if you don't want to start chaining off at zero converted mana cost? Well I've already showed you in the section "Searching your library" how you can use further creature tutors. These creatures can get you other creatures at various converted mana costs.
These ones put other creatures directly into play;
Woodland Bellower, Protean Hulk
These ones search library and go to hand or top of library;
Fierce Empath, Mwonvuli Beast Tracker, Noble Benefactor, Grozoth.

Mwonvuli Beast Tracker alone can give you access to every converted mana cost, for example;
Narnam Renegade, Sylvan Caryatid, Skullwinder, Brawn, Acidic Slime, Great Oak Guardian, Moldgraf Monstrosity, Woodfall Primus.

Treasure Mage, Trinket Mage, Trophy Mage can all get artifact creatures from their respective stipulations.

Skyshroud Poacher and Seahunter can get tribal creatures directly into play.

Undying and Persist creatures will come back into play, so you can chain back up from their converted mana costs;
Undying; Geralf's Mindcrusher, Howlgeist, Relentless Skaabs, Stormbound Geist, Strangleroot Geist, Vorapede, Young Wolf.
Persist; Aerie Ouphes, Glen Elendra Archmage, Grazing Kelpie, River Kelpie, Trapjaw Kelpie, Woodfall Primus.

Unearth, Embalm and Eternalize also allow you to spend mana to bring a creature back into play;
Unearth; Brackwater Elemental, Kathari Screecher, Fatestitcher, Kederekt Leviathan.
Embalm; Aven Initiate, Glyph Keeper, Honored Hydra, Labyrinth Guardian, Tah-Crop Skirmisher, Vizier of Many Faces.
Eternalize; Champion of Wits, Proven Combatant, Resilient Khenra, Sinuous Striker.

Phytotitan returns in your next turn.

It's random what you might get, but these can get you further creatures;
Gamekeeper, Treasure Keeper

Other cards that let you put creatures into your hand off the top of your library;
Foul Emissary, Sylvan Messenger, Brass Herald, Duskwatch Recruiter.
This is becoming more of "value" section as you are not controlling the actual converted mana costs and any card advantage creature could be used this way.

Creature combinations

This section is for listing potential infinite or strong synergy combinations in Simic colors.
The purpose is to highlight particular lines of play that you could look to Pod into with Prime Speaker Vannifar. The combos involve creatures, and also creatures that can be used to proxy search for the non-creature elements.
I've literally used the thread "Infinite combos and strong synergies" to gather particular lines.

What I've done to extend it because most of them have non-creature elements, is that I've added a spoiler tag that shows potential ways of searching for the non-creature cards through proxy of other creatures.

Archaeomancer/Mnemonic Wall/Salvager of Secrets/Scrivener + Cache Raiders/Crystal Shard + extra turn card that doesn't exile itself (i.e. Time Warp, etc) = infinite turns.
*Add Proteus Staff + Selective Memory. (Exile all creatures from your library for infinite turns + any other instants or sorceries you want to recur and a stacked deck.)

Trophy Mage = Crystal Shard, Proteus Staff
Spellseeker/Kaho, Minamo Historian = Mystical Tutor = extra turn card that doesn't exile itself.

Tidespout Tyrant + cheap artifacts / mana rocks = infinite mana/storm, e.g. Sol Ring and any 0 drop, or mana Vault and any 1 drop.

Trinket Mage = Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault.
For copying the Trinket Mage look at the section "Copying creatures".

*Note Palinchron infinite mana require lands that can provide at least 2UU + 5UU and have addtional mana left over. Most likely case is at least 6 lands that can provide double mana.
Palinchron + any passive mana doubler (e.g. Caged Sun, Extraplanar Lens, etc.) = infinite mana

Trophy Mage = Extraplanar Lens.
Treasure Mage = Caged Sun.

Palinchron + High Tide = infinite mana.

Spellseeker = High Tide.

Palinchron + Keeper of Progenitus/Regal Behemoth/Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger = infinite mana.
Palinchron + Phantasmal Image = infinite mana with at least 7 lands in play.
Palinchron + Nim Deathmantle + High Market/Diamond Valley = infinite mana, infinite life and infinite gravestorm.

Deadeye Quartermaster = Nim Deathmantle.
Trinket Mage = Expedition Map = High Market/Diamond Valley.

Peregrine Drake + Nim Deathmantle + High Market/Diamond Valley = infinite life gain.

Deadeye Quartermaster = Nim Deathmantle.
Trinket Mage = Expedition Map = High Market/Diamond Valley.

Filigree Sages + Magistrate's Scepter + Contagion Engine = infinite turns.

Trophy Mage = Magistrate's Scepter.
Treasure Mage = Contagion Engine.

Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir + Knowledge Pool = lockdown (opponents can't cast spells from hand).

Treasure Mage = Knowledge Pool.

Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir + Omen Machine = spell lockdown (cards in opponent’s hand are still playable).

Treasure Mage = Omen Machine.

Voltaic Construct + Toymaker/Karn, Silver Golem + any artifact with CMC one or more that taps for more than 2 = infinite mana

Trinket Mage = Mana Vault.
Treasure Mage = Coveted Jewel.

Cephalid Aristocrat/Cephalid Illusionist + Lightning Greaves/Umbral Mantle/Shuko = infinite self-mill.

Trophy Mage = Umbral Mantle.
Trinket Mage = Shuko.
Deadeye Quartermaster = Lightning Greaves, Umbral Mantle.

Vendilion Clique + Tunnel Vision = mill target player's library.

Spellseeker/Kaho, Minamo Historian = Mystical Tutor = Tunnel Vision.
Ethereal Usher = Tunnel Vision.

Patron of the Moon + Amulet of Vigor + Ghost Town = infinite landfall during opponent's turns.

Trinket Mage = Amulet of Vigor.
Trinket Mage = Expedition Map = Ghost Town.
For copying the Trinket Mage look at the section "Copying creatures".

Patron of the Moon + Meloku the Clouded Mirror + Amulet of Vigor + 2 land = infinite tokens/landfall.

Trinket Mage = Amulet of Vigor.

Magus of the Future/Future Sight + Etherium Sculptor (or other mana reducers) + Sensei's Divining Top = draw your deck.

Trinket Mage = Sensei's Divining Top.

Deadeye Navigator + Cloud of Faeries + mana doubler = infinite mana.

Trophy Mage = Extraplanar Lens.
Treasure Mage = Caged Sun.
Spellseeker = High Tide.

Grand Architect + Pili-Pala = infinite mana.
Rings of Brighthearth + Magosi, the Waterveil + Candelabra of Tawnos/Deserted Temple = infinite turns.

Trophy Mage = Rings of Brighthearth.
Trinket Mage = Expedition Map = Magosi, the Waterveil/Candelabra of Tawnos/Deserted Temple.
For copying the Trinket Mage look at the section "Copying creatures".

Patron of the Moon + Pearl Lake Ancient + Amulet of Vigor = infinite landfall and infinite mana.

Trinket Mage = Amulet of Vigor.

Fatestitcher + Clone* + Illusionist's Bracers = infinite mana.

Deadeye Quartermaster = Illusionist's Bracers.

Walking Atlas + Meloku the Clouded Mirror + Intruder Alarm + any land the produces more than one mana = infinite tokens, infinite mana, and infinite landfall.

Trinket Mage = Expedition Map = Gaea's Cradle.

Mistform Ultimus equipped with Oathkeeper, Takeno's Daisho + combat damage from Wanderwine Prophets out = infinite turns.

Trophy Mage/Deadeye Quartermaster = Oathkeeper, Takeno's Daisho.

Mistform Ultimus + Notorious Throng cast for its prowl cost + Archaeomancer + Riptide Laboratory = infinite turns.

Spellseeker = Mystical Tutor = Notorious Throng.
Trinket Mage = Expedition Map = Riptide Laboratory.

Aphetto Alchemist + Illusionist's Bracers = infinite untaps.

Deadeye Quartermaster = Illusionist's Bracers.

Sage of Fables + Geralf's Mindcrusher + Ashnod's Altar = infinite card draw and infinite mill.

Trophy Mage = Ashnod's Altar.

Melira, Sylvok Outcast + Woodfall Primus + sac outlet = infinite destroy target non-creature permanents.

Trophy Mage = Ashnod's Altar/Phyrexian Altar.

Cytoplast Root-Kin + Ashnod's Altar + a creature with undying = infinite ETB triggers, infinite gravestorm, and an infinitely large creature.

Trophy Mage = Ashnod's Altar.

Azusa, Lost but Seeking + Life from the Loam + Walk the Aeons = infinite turns.

Spellseeker = Life from the Loam.
Spellseeker = Mystical Tutor = Walk the Aeons.
For copying the Spellseeker look at the section "Copying creatures".

Viridian Joiner + Umbral Mantle = infinite G.

Trophy Mage/Deadeye Quartermaster = Umbral Mantle.

Priest of Titania/Elvish Archdruid + 3 other elves + Umbral Mantle = infinite G and 1 infinitely large Elf.

Trophy Mage/Deadeye Quartermaster = Umbral Mantle.

Seeker of Skybreak + Dryad Arbor + Illusionist's Bracers = infinite mana.

Deadeye Quartermaster = Illusionist's Bracers.
Trinket Mage = Expedition Map = Dryad Arbor.

Liege of the Hollows + Ashnod's Altar + Nim Deathmantle = infinite colorless mana.

Trophy Mage = Ashnod's Altar.
Deadeye Quartermaster = Nim Deathmantle.

Magus of the Candelabra + Keeper of Progenitus/Regal Behemoth/Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger + Umbral Mantle + more than 3 forests = infinite land untaps.

Trophy Mage/Deadeye Quartermaster = Umbral Mantle.

Argothian Elder/Krosan Restorer + Sword of the Paruns + Keeper of Progenitus/Regal Behemoth/Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger + more than 1 forest = infinite land untap

Deadeye Quartermaster = Sword of the Paruns.

Argothian Elder + Wirewood Lodge + land that produces 2 or more mana = infinite mana.

Trinket Mage = Expedition Map = Wirewood Lodge/Gaea's Cradle.
For copying the Trinket Mage look at the section "Copying creatures".

Basalt Monolith + Rings of Brighthearth = infinite colorless mana.

Trophy Mage = Basalt Monolith/Rings of Brighthearth.
For copying the Trophy Mage look at the section "Copying creatures".

Su-Chi + Nim Deathmantle + Blasting Station/Phyrexian Altar/Ashnod's Altar = infinite damage/colored mana/colorless mana respectively

Deadeye Quartermaster = Nim Deathmantle.
Trophy Mage = Blasting Station/Phyrexian Altar/Ashnod's Altar.

Myr Battlesphere + Nim Deathmantle + Ashnod's Altar = infinite creatures and infinite tokens.

Deadeye Quartermaster = Nim Deathmantle.
Trophy Mage = Ashnod's Altar.

Karn, Silver Golem + Salvaging Station + Mana Crypt = infinite colorless.

Trophy Mage = Salvaging Station.
Trinket Mage = Mana Crypt.

Cogwork Assembler + Myr Battlesphere + Ashnod's Altar = infinite mana and infinite creatures with haste.

Trophy Mage = Ashnod's Altar.

This section is a work in progress. More to come.

Stax

Because the deck needs very little mana and spells to operate (casting Prime Speaker Vannifar is basically the only main thing you need to do), one element you can look at is the addition of some Stax elements to slow or shut off your opponents.

With Prime Speaker Vannifar your actual need to cast cards from your hand is almost nothing, as she does most of the work for you.

I think these have the best potential of doing work for you;
Root Maze, Sphere of Resistance, Winter Orb, Static Orb, Null Rod, Trinisphere, Back to Basics, Manglehorn.

If a card like Null Rod was played in the deck, then certainly you'd need to take out a few of your own sources of artifact mana.
But the reason I'm mentioning it is because you are playing so many mana creatures, it is possible for you to avoid artifact mana more, which a lot of decks do not have that luxury.

It must be noted that with Trinisphere or Sphere of Resistance, that if you go for your combo with casting Vitalize/Dramatic Reversal you will be taxed.
However you can navigate around it with other combo lines.

"You must discern what it means for you."
—Vannifar

Protean Hulk

Because of the ability of Prime Speaker Vannifar we have a natural line of sequencing up to Protean Hulk and sacrificing it.

How to chain into Protean Hulk and be able to sacrifice it with Prime Speaker Vannifar.
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Two Drop creature into -> Spellseeker getting Vitalize.
2.) Cast Vitalize for G to untap Vannifar and mana creature.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Spellseeker into -> Breaching Hippocamp to untap Vannifar.
4.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Breaching Hippocamp into -> Mnemonic Wall returning Vitalize.
5.) Cast Vitalize for G to untap Vannifar and mana creature.
6.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Mnemonic Wall into -> Greenwarden of Murasa returning Vitalize.
7.) Cast Vitalize for G to untap Vannifar and mana creature.
8.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Greenwarden of Murasa into -> Protean Hulk.
9.) Exile Greenwarden of Murasa from your graveyard to return Vitalize.
10.) Cast Vitalize for G to untap Vannifar and mana creature.
11.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Protean Hulk into ..

-OR-

1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Two Drop creature into -> Spellseeker getting Crop Rotation.
2.) Cast Crop Rotation for G sacrificing a land and getting Minamo, School at Water's Edge.
3.) Untap Vannifar with Minamo, School at Water's Edge for U.
4.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Spellseeker into -> Archaeomancer returning Crop Rotation.
5.) Cast Crop Rotation for G sacrificing a land and getting Wirewood Lodge.
6.) Untap Vannifar with Wirewood Lodge for G.
7.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Archaeomancer into -> Peregrine Drake to untap your lands.
8.) Untap Vannifar with Minamo, School at Water's Edge for U.
9.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Peregrine Drake into -> Woodland Bellower searching for Bounding Krasis to untap Vannifar.
10.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Woodland Bellower into -> Protean Hulk.
11.) Untap Vannifar with Wirewood Lodge for G.
12.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Protean Hulk into ..

So it can be important to have lines of winning with Protean Hulk in my opinion.
But there is a huge difference between winning with Prime Speaker Vannifar in play, i.e. she was the one sacrificing the Protean Hulk in the first place, or if you've done it via some other method, like using Flash.

Protean Hulk without Prime Speaker Vannifar
Let's first look at methods that you can potentially automatically win without Prime Speaker Vannifar in play.

Option 1:

1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Protean Hulk into ..
2.) Get Ezuri, Claw of Progress + Sage of Hours + 4 x Zero Drop creatures.
3.) You get 5 experience counters for 5 creatures entering the battlefield with power 2 or less.
4.) Get infinite turns with Sage of Hours getting 5 x +1/+1 counters from Ezuri, Claw of Progress ability.

Are these creatures synergistic for the rest of the deck?
Ezuri, Claw of Progress can be triggered by a number of creatures coming into play during the course of the game, but in general you wouldn't use the +1/+1 counters during a cEDH game realistically, so only in the deck for the combo.

Sage of Hours also doesn't do anything except as part of this combo.

Memnite, Ornithopter, Shield Sphere, Phyrexian Walker are cheap creatures that you could look to start a chain with Prime Speaker Vannifar.
It is possible to play Hangarback Walker and Walking Ballista as alternatives as they can represent win conditions with infinite mana. But they are more expensive to cast to leave permanently on the board.

Note that Dryad Arbor can be part of the Zero Drop creatures, so this can help to count towards the experience counter is need be.

Flash Hulk Package Ezuri SageMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
1 Protean Hulk 1 Flash 1 Ezuri, Claw of Progress 1 Sage of Hours 1 Memnite 1 Ornithopter 1 Walking Ballista 1 Hangarback Walker 1 Dryad Arbor

Option 2:
This method requires an additional 1U so wouldn't be appropriate if you are looking to win more on average on the first or even second turn, as you'll need to cast Flash as well, so requires 2UU



1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Protean Hulk into ..
2.) Get Snapcaster Mage + Eternal Witness + Birds of Paradise.
3.) Eternal Witness returns Protean Hulk.
4.) Snapcaster Mage targets Flash. Flashback Flash for 1U + Protean Hulk.
*This time there is no Flash in graveyard.
5.) Get Volrath's Shapeshifter + Pili-Pala + Sidisi's Faithful.
*Volrath's Shapeshifter becomes a copy Protean Hulk.
6.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Volrath's Shapeshifter as Protean Hulk with Sidisi's Faithful.
7.) Get Grand Architect + Trophy Mage.
8.) Trophy Mage gets Thousand-Year Elixir.
9.) Tap Trophy Mage, Grand Architect to get 4.
10.) Cast Thousand-Year Elixir for 3.
11.) Untap Grand Architect with Thousand-Year Elixir for t1 and tap Grand Architect for 2.
12.) Tap Birds of Paradise for U.
13.) Activate Grand Architect for U to make the Pili-Pala Blue.
14.) You can get infinite mana, and can cast Prime Speaker Vannifar.
..draw and play out you whole deck.

Flash Hulk Package Grand Architect Pili-PalaMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
1 Protean Hulk 1 Flash 1 Volrath's Shapeshifter 1 Snapcaster Mage 1 Sidisi's Faithful 1 Grand Architect 1 Pili-Pala 1 Eternal Witness 1 Trophy Mage 1 Thousand-Year Elixir

Protean Hulk with Prime Speaker Vannifar in play
With Prime Speaker Vannifar in play your options will be a lot more flexible, and honestly too numerous to really speculate on how you might configure your 6 converted mana worth of creatures. But I will keep appending to this section as I think of ways to win.

You can use some cheap untappers like Quirion Ranger, Scryb Ranger, Wirewood Symbiote, as ways to keep chaining creatures up, for win conditions.



1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Protean Hulk into..
2.) Getting Volrath's Shapeshifter + Pili-Pala + Quirion Ranger + Dryad Arbor.
3.) Return a Forest with Quirion Ranger to untap Vannifar.
4.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Volrath's Shapeshifter as Protean Hulk into ..
5.) Getting Grand Architect + Trophy Mage.
6.) Trophy Mage getting Thousand-Year Elixir.
7.) Tap Trophy Mage, Grand Architect to get 4 with Grand Architect ability.
8.) Cast Thousand-Year Elixir for 3.
9.) Untap Vannifar with Thousand-Year Elixir for t1.
10.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Trophy Mage into -> Fatestitcher to untap a U source.
11.) Activate Grand Architect for U to make the Pili-Pala blue.
You can get infinite mana, drawing your deck and playing it out, etc.



1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Protean Hulk into -> Woodfall Primus.
2.) Getting Melira, Sylvok Outcast + Trophy Mage + Quirion Ranger + Dryad Arbor.
3.) Trophy Mage gets Ashnod's Altar.
4.) Cast Ashnod's Altar for 3.
5.) Return Forest to untap Vannifar with Quirion Ranger.
6.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Trophy Mage into -> Glen Elendra Archmage.
Can destroy all opponents non-creature permanents, and counter all non-creature spells.
-or-
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Protean Hulk into -> Woodfall Primus.
2.) Getting Melira, Sylvok Outcast + Scryb Ranger + Hidden Herbalists + Dryad Arbor.
3.) Return Forest to untap Vannifar with Scryb Ranger.
4.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Scryb Ranger into -> Trophy Mage.
5.) Trophy Mage gets Ashnod's Altar.
6.) Cast Ashnod's Altar for 3.
Now you only need 1 mana, but can't chain into Glen Elendra Archmage until next turn.



1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Protean Hulk into ..
2.) Getting Etherium Sculptor + Trinket Mage + Quirion Ranger + Dryad Arbor.
3.) Trinket Mage gets Sensei's Divining Top.
4.) Return a Forest to untap Vannifar with Quirion Ranger.
5.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Trinket Mage into -> Breaching Hippocamp -> Magus of the Future.
You can cast Sensei's Divining Top for 0, tap to draw a card and put it on top of library. Magus of the Future allows you to cast it for 0 off top of library, and repeat to draw your deck.



1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Protean Hulk into ..
2.) Getting Treasure Mage + Quirion Ranger + Hidden Herbalists + Dryad Arbor.
3.) Treasure Mage gets Knowledge Pool.
4.) Hidden Herbalists adds 1G.
5.) Return a Forest with Quirion Ranger to untap Vannifar.
6.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Treasure Mage into -> Breaching Hippocamp to untap Vannifar.
7.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Breaching Hippocamp into -> Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir.
8.) Cast Knowledge Pool for 6.
-or-
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Protean Hulk into ..
2.) Getting Volrath's Shapeshifter + Scryb Ranger + Quirion Ranger + Dryad Arbor.
3.) Return a Forest with Quirion Ranger to untap Vannifar.
4.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Volrath's Shapeshifter as Protean Hulk into ..
5.) Getting Grand Architect + Treasure Mage.
6.) Treasure Mage gets Knowledge Pool.
7.) Return a Forest with Scryb Ranger to untap Vannifar.
8.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Treasure Mage into -> Breaching Hippocamp to untap Vannifar.
9.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Breaching Hippocamp into -> Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir.
10.) Tap Trophy Mage, Grand Architect, Breaching Hippocamp, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir to get 8 with Grand Architect ability.
11.) Cast Knowledge Pool for 6.
Your opponents can't cast spells from hand for the rest of the game.



1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Protean Hulk into ..
2.) Getting Fatestitcher + Hapless Researcher + Quirion Ranger + Dryad Arbor.
3.) Return a Forest with Quirion Ranger to untap Vannifar.
4.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Quirion Ranger into -> Scryb Ranger, return a Forest to untap Vannifar.
5.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Scryb Ranger into -> Laboratory Maniac.
6.) Unearth Fatestitcher for U and untap Vannifar.
7.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Leveler.
8.) Draw a card with Hapless Researcher to win.


If anybody has some suggestions for Protean Hulk combos in Simic, please suggest them and leave a comment. There is no harm in building up as many potential packages as possible so that people can cross reference for the way they want to build their deck.

Flash

Having the option to Flash the Protean Hulk from your hand is just a nice potential bonus you can do.

You can potentially get the Flash from Spellseeker. You could chain into Spellseeker with Prime Speaker Vannifar. You could use this line if you already have the Protean Hulk in your hand.
Along those same lines it might be worth looking at Fierce Empath for the same reason that it can get you Protean Hulk.

Here are some combo lines to get Protean Hulk and Flash into your hand with Prime Speaker Vannifar.

1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice a Two Drop into -> Spellseeker getting Summoner's Pact.
2.) Cast Summoner's Pact for 0 getting Quirion Ranger.
3.) Cast Quirion Ranger for G and return a Forest to untap Vannifar.
4.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Quirion Ranger into -> Phantasmal Image copying Spellseeker getting Nostalgic Dreams.
5.) Cast Nostalgic Dreams for GG and discarding two cards, returning Quirion Ranger and Summoner's Pact.
6.) Cast Quirion Ranger for G and return a Forest to untap Vannifar.
7.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Spellseeker into -> Breaching Hippocamp to untap Vannifar.
8.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Breaching Hippocamp into -> Body Double copying Spellseeker getting Flash.
9.) Cast Summoner's Pact for 0 getting Protean Hulk.
10.) Cast Flash for 1U with Protean Hulk.

All up you'll need 1UGGGG for this one, plus two Forests.

-OR-

This example is if you actually chain from a Zero Drop creature;
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice a Zero Drop into -> Quirion Ranger returning a Forest to untap Vannifar.
2.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Quirion Ranger into -> Scryb Ranger returning a Forest to untap Vannifar.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Scryb Ranger into -> Spellseeker getting Nostalgic Dreams.
4.) Cast Nostalgic Dreams for GG and discarding two cards, returning Quirion Ranger and Scryb Ranger.
5.) Cast Quirion Ranger for G and return a Forest to untap Vannifar.
6.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Quirion Ranger into -> Phantasmal Image copying Spellseeker getting Flash.
7.) Cast Scryb Ranger for 1G returning a Forest to untap Vannifar.
8.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Scryb Ranger into -> Fierce Empath getting Protean Hulk.
9.) Cast Flash for 1U with Protean Hulk.

All up you'll need 2UGGGG for this one, plus four Forests. What you can do however is hold onto the Flash + Protean Hulk if you don't have the mana available, so if you only have 1GGGG then you can wait for a window to cast them.

1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Two Drop into -> Spellseeker for Summoner's Pact.
2.) Cast Summoner's Pact for 0 getting Quirion Ranger.
3.) Cast Quirion Ranger for G and return a Forest to untap Vannifar.
4.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Spellseeker into -> Archaeomancer returning Summoner's Pact.
5.) Cast Summoner's Pact for 0 getting Wirewood Symbiote.
6.) Cast Wirewood Symbiote for G.
7.) Return Quirion Ranger with Wirewood Symbiote to untap Vannifar.
8.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Wirewood Symbiote into -> Naban, Dean of Iteration.
9.) Cast Quirion Ranger for G and return a Forest to untap Vannifar.
10.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Archaeomancer into -> Body Double copying Spellseeker getting Flash and Regrowth.
11.) Cast Regrowth for 1G returning Summoner's Pact.
12.) Cast Summoner's Pact for 0 getting Protean Hulk.
13.) Cast Flash for 1U with Protean Hulk.

This method also requires 2UGGGG.

Birthing Pod

Well first up Prime Speaker Vannifar and Birthing Pod are different in the fact that one is an artifact and the other is a creature. So if we look at our untapping cards, they are all in fact reference untapping a creature;
Thornbite Staff, Intruder Alarm, Thousand-Year Elixir, Retreat to Coralhelm, Tideforce Elemental, Quirion Ranger, Scryb Ranger, Bounding Krasis, Breaching Hippocamp, Vitalize, Wirewood Lodge, (Minamo, School at Water's Edge sort of).

So you can see straight away that you can't do progressive chains like Prime Speaker Vannifar using the same techniques. In this respect it's no one-for-one substitute.

What is Birthing Pod role then?
Well without Prime Speaker Vannifar in play you can look to get value. But you need to have value creatures in your deck otherwise it'll be a bit wasted. In my deck configurations, so many of the creatures are geared towards untapping.

With Prime Speaker Vannifar in play, Birthing Pod in many ways represents an untapper. If you have a chink in the chain, where it's hard to untap Vannifar through sequencing, then Birthing Pod can be use at that stage to get you to the next creature. I've already mentioned that Five converted mana cost creatures, often offer the least ways to untap her. So you could easily use Pod to move you along.

It also gives you flexibility during chains, that you normally couldn't do. For example normally you can't go for Fatestitcher if you don't have haste when doing chains, as you then don't have a way to untap Vannifar until your next turn.
But with Birthing Pod you can get Fatestitcher, as you can sacrifice it with it. This allows you to unearth it, to untap Vannifar. Now you can get two Five converted mana cost creatures, so represents also getting multiple creatures.

You could do this for example;
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Two Drop creature into -> Spellseeker getting Vitalize.
2.) Cast Vitalize G to untap Vannifar.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Spellseeker into -> Fatestitcher.
3.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Fatestitcher into -> Peregrine Drake.
5.) Unearth Fatestitcher for U to untap Vannifar.
4.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Mnemonic Wall returning Vitalize.
5.) Cast Vitalize G to untap Vannifar.
6.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Mnemonic Wall into -> Deadeye Navigator soulbond to Peregrine Drake.

You can see how much of a short cut this can be to get infinite mana.

What can untap Birthing Pod?
Kiora's Follower and Fatestitcher are creatures that can untap Birthing Pod.
So if you can setup either of these creatures with Birthing Pod, then you can do many of the lines that you would normally do with Prime Speaker Vannifar. Just your creature untappers will target the Kiora's Follower or Fatestitcher, so you can keep untapping the Birthing Pod itself.
It will cost t1(G/P) each time, so not quite as easy as Prime Speaker Vannifar free activation.

Having a backup engine to Prime Speaker Vannifar can be important in metas where you become the archenemy. Which is fair enough, she is a very broken commander.

Using you first Birthing Pod to get Kiora's Follower off a One Drop or Fatestitcher off a Three Drop, is a pretty reasonable plan, if you don't have access to Prime Speaker Vannifar.

What are other ways to make Birthing Pod a similar engine to Prime Speaker Vannifar?

Well you can put in cards like Emerald Charm, Dream's Grip, Twiddle, Dramatic Reversal, Psychic Puppetry for Vitalize in some of the combo chains, as they specifically say untap permanent(s) or the like, not just creatures. You need to be careful in that it's going to be a much more mana expensive process however. You don't get any benefits of potentially being able to untap mana creatures, which will often pays for the process.
Plus Birthing Pod itself also costs mana.

But for example;
1.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Two Drop creature into -> Spellseeker getting Dramatic Reversal.
2.) Cast Dramatic Reversal for 1U to untap Birthing Pod and hopefully mana creature(s) and/or artifact mana.
3.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Spellseeker into -> Archaeomancer returning Dramatic Reversal.
4.) Cast Dramatic Reversal for 1U to untap Birthing Pod and hopefully mana creature(s) and/or artifact mana.
5.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Archaeomancer into -> Mnemonic Wall returning Dramatic Reversal.
5.) Cast Dramatic Reversal for 1U to untap Birthing Pod and hopefully mana creature(s) and/or artifact mana.
7.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Mnemonic Wall into -> Greenwarden of Murasa returning Dramatic Reversal.
8.) Cast Dramatic Reversal for 1U to untap Birthing Pod and hopefully mana creature(s) and/or artifact mana.
9.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Greenwarden of Murasa into -> Protean Hulk.
10.) Exile Greenwarden of Murasa from your graveyard to return Dramatic Reversal.
11.) Cast Dramatic Reversal for 1U to untap Birthing Pod and hopefully mana creature(s) and/or artifact mana.
12.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Protean Hulk into ..

So all up it'll cost you 11UUUUU and 12 life, which can be a pretty tall order (let's say impossible).
But with non-land mana sources you can look to pay for the costs. You'll need some that provide blue; Birds of Paradise, Arbor Elf, Kiora's Follower, Voyaging Satyr. There are a lot more mana creatures in Simic that can provide U, so you might alter your build to suite this potential line more. Paying for the additional 2 would best be served with Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Mana Vault also in play.

What are some other ways to make Birthing Pod another Prime Speaker Vannifar for your build?
As most of the untap cards are centered around creatures, if you can make Birthing Pod a creature, then you can use it in the same way as Prime Speaker Vannifar.

Cards that can make Birthing Pod a creature in Simic;
Karn, Silver Golem, Toymaker.
Tezzeret the Seeker, Tezzeret, Cruel Machinist, The Antiquities War, March of the Machines.

You can Birthing Pod a Four Drop into Karn, Silver Golem or a One Drop into Toymaker.
If you were to play Karn, Silver Golem then you could also look to take advantage of Vitalize or Mobilize, by turning your artifacts like Sol Ring and Mana Vault into creatures as well. You might have more artifacts as well, but they can't be Zero converted mana cost, otherwise they just die. So Simic Signet, Grim Monolith, Basalt Monolith, Thran Dynamo, Gilded Lotus, Coveted Jewel are examples of artifacts that would net you mana after a couple of uses with Karn, Silver Golem and mass untappers like Vitalize.

Tezzeret the Seeker is interesting in that you can use it to specifically search for Birthing Pod. If you were to use Tezzeret the Seeker [+1] first so that he didn't die searching for [-4], then on subsequent turns you can use the [+1] ability to untap the Birthing Pod. But getting it to [-5] to make Birthing Pod a creature is a slow process.

Paradox Engine is another card that can be used to get multiple uses..I know shock horror right!? Haha just joking it's hard to say that particular cards name without it doing something absurd.
You need to cast cards to have effect, but if you check out the focus post I did on Chakram Retriever some number of posts up from this one, you can setup sequences to keep chaining.
Paradox Engine has the advantage that it can also untap mana creature and artifact mana, giving you an easy way to keep casting spells.
But for example with Paradox Engine and Birthing Pod in play, you can simulate Prime Speaker Vannifar with particular sequences.
1.) With Paradox Engine and Birthing Pod in play.
2.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Two Drop creature into -> Spellseeker getting Gitaxian Probe.
3.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) to untap Vannifar with Paradox Engine.
4.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Spellseeker into -> Archaeomancer returning Gitaxian Probe.
5.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) to untap Vannifar with Paradox Engine.
6.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Archaeomancer into -> Mnemonic Wall returning Gitaxian Probe.
7.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) Mnemonic Wall to untap Vannifar with Paradox Engine.
8.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) into -> Greenwarden of Murasa returning Gitaxian Probe.
9.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) to untap Vannifar with Paradox Engine.
10.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Greenwarden of Murasa into Protean Hulk.
11.) Exile Greenwarden of Murasa from graveyard to return Gitaxian Probe.
12.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) to untap Vannifar with Paradox Engine.
13.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Protean Hulk into ..

Once again you're far better off with a mana creature in play to pay for the Birthing Pod as you still need to spend at least 1 each time you activate it. A mana creature or artifact mana will pay for the cost each time in conjunction with Paradox Engine.
If you have several non-land mana sources, with one providing U, then something like Brainstorm would be more appealing than Gitaxian Probe as you can insure that you can keep putting creatures you want to search up back in your library. With Gitaxian Probe you'll be drawing 5 cards, so you might end up drawing a key creature.

Note that Isochron Scepter with Dramatic Reversal exiled can be used in similar ways. This isn't about casting cards however, if you can get at least 2 from non-land sources then you can keep reusing it, and so with Birthing Pod you'd need at least 3 to pay for the Pod activation as well.

Another alternative method is to actually use an extra turn card that doesn't exile itself, like Time Warp, Capture of Jingzhou, Temporal Manipulation, Walk the Aeons, Time Stretch, in conjunction with graveyard retrieval cards.
The biggest problem with this is that there are not many creatures that actually allow you to search for these cards in Simic.

But you could do something like this;
1.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Two Drop creature into -> Spellseeker getting Mystical Tutor.
2.) Cast Mystical Tutor for Time Warp/Temporal Manipulation/etc and draw it with another card or wait a turn.
3.) Cast Time Warp to take an extra turn.
4.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Spellseeker into -> Archaeomancer returning Time Warp.
5.) Cast Time Warp to take an extra turn.
6.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Archaeomancer into -> Mnemonic Wall returning Time Warp.
7.) Cast Time Warp to take an extra turn.
8.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Mnemonic Wall into -> Greenwarden of Murasa returning Time Warp.
9.) Cast Time Warp to take an extra turn.
10.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Greenwarden of Murasa into Protean Hulk.
11.) Exile Greenwarden of Murasa from graveyard to return Time Warp.
12.) Cast Time Warp to take an extra turn.
13.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Protean Hulk into ..

This is pretty appealing as you can easily pay for costs and you get to draw a card for your additional turns, play another land, etc..I don't think I need to explain the usefulness of extra turns

Note that this line can also be done with Prime Speaker Vannifar, so having access to at least one extra turn cards seems pretty nice once you have 3UU to cast it, which on average will be the turn after you cast Prime Speaker Vannifar anyway.

How else can you leverage Birthing Pod?
You have some options to copy Birthing Pod giving you further potential activation's each turn.
Phyrexian Metamorph, Clever Impersonator.
Copy Artifact, Mechanized Production, Mirage Mirror, Prototype Portal, Saheeli's Artistry, Sculpting Steel, Stolen Identity, Cogwork Assembler, Mirrorworks.

Being able to Birthing Pod into Phyrexian Metamorph or Clever Impersonator to then make another copy of Birthing Pod means that you can use the new version straight away. So if you have other creatures to chain into then this is a very tempting idea to set yourself up for following turns having multiple activation's.
These are just solid options for Four Drop creatures with Prime Speaker Vannifar for value as well, depending on what is on the board already.

Mirage Mirror is also a solid all-star in commander, often doing things in games that you wouldn't expect. It can be extremely hard to remove as you can turn it into a land, often negating sorcery removal effects that would destroy it.
You can copy the Birthing Pod to get an additional use. Mirage Mirror can copy Wirewood Lodge to get another untap out of Prime Speaker Vannifar.

Copying a creature that you'd prefer to have in play for it's utility to keep chaining up can be beneficial.
Examples of this are; Quirion Ranger, Scryb Ranger, Kiora's Follower, Dosan the Falling Leaf, Fatestitcher, Peregrine Drake, Deadeye Navigator, Palinchron.

For example you can chain into Peregrine Drake and Deadeye Navigator by just using any copy creature card that you might have drawn.
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Two Drop creature into -> Bounding Krasis to untap Vannifar
2.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Bounding Krasis into -> Breaching Hippocamp to untap Vannifar.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Breaching Hippocamp into -> Peregrine Drake to untap 5 lands.
4.) Cast Phantasmal Image/Phyrexian Metamorph/Clever Impersonator/Mirage Mirror to copy Peregrine Drake.
5.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice copy of Peregrine Drake into -> Deadeye Navigator soulbond to Peregrine Drake.

In conclusion
Let's get honest with ourselves, the weak part of any Prime Speaker Vannifar build that relies on her heavily, is herself. If she is dealt with constantly your deck can end up doing a lot of nothing.

Although straight up Birthing Pod is no substitute for Prime Speaker Vannifar, it does represent at the very least an on-board "untapper" for Prime Speaker Vannifar during more awkward sequences, and offers very powerful shortcuts if you use it in conjunction with Fatestitcher.
Also there are a lot of sequences that allow you to chain up into Seven converted mana creatures, but nothing that naturally allows you to sacrifice that Seven Drop. Protean Hulk being an example that you have to do a lot of Rube Goldberg machinery to be able to do that. With Birthing Pod you can use it to sacrifice your Seven Drop easily as well.

In decks that have a lot more value creatures, you can use it purely to get well..value.

If you have cards that can get more activation's out of it, then you can look to use it as an alternative to Prime Speaker Vannifar when you're used to her being the must remove target during games, which should happen often if your play group is smart.
Setting up with Kiora's Follower and Fatestitcher with Birthing Pod is the equivalent of Prime Speaker Vannifar.
One thing is that Kiora's Follower and Fatestitcher will have summoning sickness normally, so you'd be looking to Pod into them and wait a turn before you can get your chains going.
Also that means that you can't sequence from creatures that are 2 converted mana cost lower than them, without waiting another subsequent turn, so two turns.
Trying to use Quirion Ranger, Scryb Ranger, Bounding Krasis, Breaching Hippocamp, won't work if they have summoning sickness, so in this respect you need to wait until they are able to untap.
So unless you actually have a One Drop creature to put Kiora's Follower into play, or a Three Drop creature to put Fatestitcher into play, then you'd have to wait two full turns sequencing a Zero Drop or Two Drop creature to get either of them into play.

Once again depending on your builds, cards like Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff only really work when Prime Speaker Vannifar is active and ready. Which is basically just a backup plan, and certainly a win-more in most instances.
You're probably better off having a backup plan to not having Prime Speaker Vannifar, then you're to not having access to certain creatures in your library.

In this respect looking at cards like Paradox Engine, (Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal), Time Warp, as potential back up engines to fuel Birthing Pod and other things have certainly convinced me of their worth.

Intruder Alarm / Thornbite Staff

Intruder Alarm

Thornbite Staff

I've heard these card works well with Prime Speaker Vannifar? On a serious note, you'll notice that these don't feature in any of the decks in the primer, not even as a fail safe to what the decks are already doing.
This is because the decks are heavily focused on being self contained win conditions with many paths to victory with untapping through creature chains.

It is a little hard to get away from the temptation of the combo element of Prime Speaker Vannifar, and not just want to win on the spot.

There are two things I want to talk about, one is what sort of deck would you make if Intruder Alarm/Thornbite Staff was a necessary or at least good card for your build?
The other is actually if you were to run Intruder Alarm/Thornbite Staff as a backup for your combo chain build, what does this even look like in terms of triggers, etc.

If you're sacrificing creatures to get more creatures, then you're going to run out of creatures in your deck to search at each converted mana cost at a certain stage.
This is where Loaming Shaman and Body Double can be looped to give yourself infinite reshuffles of your graveyard.



You can just keep shuffling the other back into you library as long as you can keep both chaining up and start chains at two or lower converted mana cost.

An example of creating more creatures is Woodland Bellower and Protean Hulk. They can just keep getting the Loaming Shaman and you chain up to Body Double to shuffle the Loaming Shaman and Woodland Bellower/Protean Hulk.
You can also use creature token makers to do keep chains going.

Let's pick a "win condition" creature as well to show the sort of chaining you can infinite loop. In this case I'll use Reef Worm to show how making creature tokens means that you can chain again from Zero Drop into Loaming Shaman again.

With Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff in play.
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Two Drop creature into -> Loaming Shaman.
2.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Loaming Shaman into -> Reef Worm.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Reef Worm into -> Body Double copying Loaming Shaman.
4.) Shuffle at least Loaming Shaman, Reef Worm back into library.
5.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Body Double as Loaming Shaman into -> Reef Worm.
6.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Reef Worm into -> Any Five Drop you want or even nothing.
7.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice 3/3 blue Fish creature token (from Reef Worm) into -> One Drop.
8.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice One Drop into -> Two Drop.
*Start again at Step 1.) to loop infinitely. With Loaming Shaman just makes sure to shuffle back all the creatures you previously sacrificed including Body Double, Reef Worm, and the One and Two Drops into your library.

You can just keep repeating making infinite 9/9 blue Kraken creature tokens.

If you wanted to add other win conditions then you can do stuff like make your Two Drop Cloud of Faeries or One Drop Blisterpod for infinite mana.
Then you can draw your deck by finally putting a draw creature into play like River Hoopoe or Thrasios, Triton Hero.
You could combine life gain creature with finally using Squallmonger to kill opponents once you are ready.
Alternatively playing Tukatongue Thallid and Vitaspore Thallid to give all your 9/9 Kraken's haste.
Merrow Witsniper will mill opponents libraries.

It's important to remember that you are sacrificing one creature to get to the next with Intruder Alarm/Thornbite Staff and Prime Speaker Vannifar.
So I can't stress the importance of having creatures that can "create" other creatures.
There is Woodland Bellower and Protean Hulk of course. As long as you have a lot of creatures in your deck at each converted mana cost, you could split up Protean Hulk into 6 One Drops if you had them, to then proceed to chain up to they were all Ten Drops..if your deck was built that way
You could also use cards that make lots of tokens like Avenger of Zendikar or Hornet Queen.
This gives you flexibility not to just have 'enter the battlefield' or 'dies' triggers, as you'll actually be able to leave a number of creatures in play.

The question is what do you want to leave in play and how high to you want to keep chaining up creatures?
If you're going up to say a Ten Drop or more, then what is your Nine Drop doing for you, if it just gets sacrificed immediately?
There are actually only 22 creatures to choose from in all of Magic in Simic at Nine Drop, and the truth is that they really don't do anything (if sacrificed immediately) except being part of the chain. Void Winnower and Nullstone Gargoyle are nice control creatures but require to stay in play to get value.
Grozoth is the only one that gives you an enter battlefield trigger, so this could be worked in?



Now in much the same way that we were using Loaming Shaman and Body Double to create an infinite creature cycle loop, you can do the same thing with Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre.
If you were to chain through them you can shuffle your graveyard into your library.
The difference between Intruder Alarm and Thornbite Staff is that Intruder Alarm needs a creature to 'enter the battlefield', where as Thornbite Staff just needs anything to die.
Thornbite Staff is different in that it's going to trigger no matter what, if you use Prime Speaker Vannifar, even if you fail to search for a creature.
If you have Intruder Alarm it's going to depend on how many other creatures you have greater than those Eldrazi? If it's Thornbite Staff then you don't have to worry about that, and can do it an infinite amount of times, as long as you have another creature to chain, i.e. creature token or something similar at a lower cost to get a value train going again.

If you have a creature sacrifice outlet at some stage, then you can sacrifice the Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre to put it back into your library, so that you can infinitely loop searches.
For example if you were to use Profaner of the Dead as part of the chain each time, then you can keep the loop going.

Also you could use Worldspine Wurm instead of Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre as it creates creature tokens on dies, and also shuffles back into you library. So you can sacrifice the Worldspine Wurm and you get to untap Vannifar, even if you fail to find a creature.

There are any amount of chains that you could do, but I'll give you an example of a God sequence..

Token creature -> Merrow Witsniper -> Augur of Bolas -> Wood Elves -> Venser, Shaper Savant -> Peregrine Drake -> Duplicant -> Chancellor of the Spires -> Terastodon -> Grozoth -> Kozilek, Butcher of Truth -> Worldspine Wurm.

Merrow Witsniper will mill opponents libraries, then you can use Chancellor of the Spires to cast their instants and sorceries.
You can destroy all the non-creature permanents, making them 3/3 green Elephant creature tokens, which you can then proceed to exile with Duplicant.
For added spice you can play Clone Legion in your deck and search it with Grozoth, cast it potentially infinite times, as you get infinite mana with Peregrine Drake and remember all your spells get shuffled back in with Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, so all the instant and sorcery you get with Augur of Bolas you'll be able to keep recasting as well.

OK, this is complete overkill, but represents a fun chain (for you). You could just have Triskelion as a way to kill opponents, and then all the other converted mana costs would be arbitrary.

The realms of possibilities are endless with creature bases and using Intruder Alarm and Thornbite Staff, so it's just up to you what you might concoct.

You could look to not have indefinite chains like I've showed with Loaming Shaman and Body Double or Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre/Worldspine Wurm.
It's going to depend on how many quality cards you have and if you have enough of every converted mana cost creature still in the deck?
Rather you'd be happy with enough chaining to disrupt your opponents with several cycles.
Reclamation Sage -> Venser, Shaper Savant -> Acidic Slime -> Duplicant -> Phyrexian Ingester -> Terastodon.
You can target one of your own permanents to make 3/3 token creature, so you can start another chain.
3/3 token creature -> Caustic Caterpillar -> Stern Proctor -> Vendilion Clique -> Thought-Knot Seer -> Somberwald Stag -> Destructor Dragon -> Avenger of Zendikar.
Once again you can chain through whatever you might have left in the deck, starting with a 0/1 Plant token again.

The problem with doing this is when you literally don't have a creature to search with Prime Speaker Vannifar at a certain mana cost. You can try and make sure your build has an even spread of converted mana cost creatures to make sure you don't draw too many of a particular cost, but it's always random what you might draw, milled, etc.

Another thing you can look to do with Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff is make use of creatures that can copy other creatures.
Let's say we will aim for copying Terastodon multiple times.
We could go Avenger of Zendikar into -> Terastodon just to make sure we have a bunch of token creatures to start chaining up again.
As long as you have enough One, Two and Three Drop creatures in the deck you can go for Phantasmal Image, Renegade Doppelganger, Mirror Image. With tons of Four Drops to choose from as well, Altered Ego, Clone, Gigantoplasm, Phyrexian Metamorph, Sakashima the Impostor, Sakashima's Student, Stunt Double, Vizier of Many Faces, Clever Impersonator.
So you can turn as many of your 0/1 Plants into Terastodon given enough creatures in your deck to chain through. You can destroy all your opponents lands, artifact, enchantments, planeswalkers and then chain into something like Profaner of the Dead to remove all the 3/3 tokens.

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Primer decks
Let's look at Intruder Alarm and Thornbite Staff as potential redundancy in the primer builds. It's worth asking the question "Are they better than other work around for redundancy?".

The cEDH deck only has a few creatures at the Four and Five converted mana costs, so the game plan is always the same.
We only have Elvish Piper, Fatestitcher, Body Double, Peregrine Drake.

Most of the problems you have, is not having these not in your library. But even then, there are contingency plans, that can be worked around in some manner.
The literally worst is if Body Double is in your graveyard.
You still need a Five Drop to sacrifice into Deadeye Navigator so even with Intruder Alarm, your sort of stuck on the same problems.
Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff could be used as a substitute for needing to cast Thousand-Year Elixir if you do draw it and play it however.

With Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff in play.
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Three Drop into -> Fatestitcher, Intruder Alarm/Thornbite Staff untaps Prime Speaker Vannifar.
2.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Peregrine Drake, Intruder Alarm/Thornbite Staff untaps Prime Speaker Vannifar.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Peregrine Drake into -> Deadeye Navigator, Intruder Alarm/Thornbite Staff untaps Prime Speaker Vannifar.
4.) Unearth Fatestitcher for U, Intruder Alarm untaps Prime Speaker Vannifar.
5.) Fatestitcher can untap Vannifar if Thornbite Staff is used.
6.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Body Double copying Peregrine Drake, Intruder Alarm//Thornbite Staff untaps Prime Speaker Vannifar.

This method doesn't really require mana on the combo turn if you've already cast, rather than the 4 you need for Thousand-Year Elixir.

Now in my primer deck list, I have a lot more chains I could use with Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff, but the reality is that I've built the deck to have multiple ways to chain in the first place so the redundancy is just not necessary.

But the overall thing is that Intruder Alarm is an enchantment and you really don't have any good ways to search for it in Simic, which means mostly relying on drawing it.
You can use Drift of Phantasms to transmute for it.
Long-Term Plans can be used to get it, which a Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, can help to draw it straight away.
Intuition can be combined with graveyard retrieval cards like Eternal Witness and Regrowth.
Then further proxing tutoring, with Worldy Tutor getting Drift of Phantasms, or Mystical Tutor or Merchant Scroll for Long-Term Plans or Intuition.

Thornbite Staff is an artifact so there are a few more ways to search for it;
Deadeye Quartermaster, Fabricate, Arcum Dagsson, Inventors' Fair, Reshape, Skyship Weatherlight, Tezzeret the Seeker, Transmute Artifact, Whir of Invention.
Deadeye Quartermaster can be chained into with Prime Speaker Vannifar to get it.
Spellseeker can get Reshape, Transmute Artifact, Whir of Invention.
Trinket Mage can get Expedition Map, allowing you to get Inventors' Fair.

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Combo cards without Prime Speaker Vannifar
Intruder Alarm and Thornbite Staff have been around for a while, and are certainly used as combo cards on their own right.
If you have some means of producing creatures with an on-board ability and have the mana to pay for it, then you can look to do it infinite times.

Mana creatures are perfect for producing the maybe necessary mana as they will get untapped.
Another more convoluted way is to be able to make artifact mana sources into creatures as well.
For example say if you have Gilded Lotus in play, you can use cards like; Karn, Silver Golem, Toymaker, Tezzeret the Seeker, Tezzeret, Cruel Machinist, The Antiquities War, March of the Machines, to make it a creature.

Here is a list of Simic cards that can produce creature tokens, so as long as you have enough mana sources that will untap to keep paying you can loop.
Ant Queen, Biogenic Ooze, Centaur Glade, Budoka Gardener, Imperious Perfect, Inspired Sphinx, Jade Mage, Kazandu Tuskcaller, Master of the Hunt, Myr Matrix, Nemata, Grove Guardian, Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter, Retrofitter Foundry, Soul of Zendikar, Spawnsire of Ulamog, Splintering Wind, Splitting Slime, Stitcher's Apprentice, Thundering Spineback, Wall of Kelp, Wren's Run Packmaster.

These are not guaranteed infinite, but can be looped;
Arcane Artisan, Stitcher Geralf, Yisan, the Wanderer Bard, Arcum Dagsson, Jalira, Master Polymorphist.
Tribal stipulations;
Voice of the Woods with enough Elves in play. Seahunter, Skyshroud Poacher

There are some enchant lands, so if you put them on a land that is able to become a creature then you can look to get infinite;
Leafdrake Roost, Presence of Gond, Spawning Grounds, Squirrel Nest.
Lands that can become creatures; Dryad Arbor, Treetop Village, Faerie Conclave, Lumbering Falls, Inkmoth Nexus, Blinkmoth Nexus, Mutavault, Mishra's Factory.

There are a number of artifacts that tap to create token creatures, but you'd need to make them creatures to also untap. Again you'd have to use cards like Karn, Silver Golem, etc to also make these work.
Hornet Cannon, Metrognome, Mimic Vat, Myr Turbine, Nuisance Engine, Orochi Hatchery, Phyrexian Processor, Riptide Replicator, Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII, Serpent Generator, Soul Foundry, Summoning Station, The Hive, Throne of Empires, Volrath's Laboratory, Whirlermaker.

You can also use cards that bounce creatures to also get loops going. Cloudstone Curio, Equilibrium can bounce creatures and if you have the mana sources to keep paying for recasting creatures you bounce you can get infinite loops going. You'd want some sort of payoff, maybe 'enter the battlefield' trigger, etc.

Creature that can return creatures to hand or play;
Deadeye Navigator, Tradewind Rider, Heidar, Rimewind Master, Linessa, Zephyr Mage, Master Transmuter, Nephalia Smuggler, Palinchron, Shorecrasher Elemental, Temporal Adept, Temur Sabertooth, Tidespout Tyrant, Time Elemental, Vedalken Mastermind.

Thornbite Staff is a bit more tricky to build combos around as it specifically requires creatures to die and it only untaps the creature that it's equipped too. Perfect for Prime Speaker Vannifar as she both taps and sacrifices for activation.
Arcum Dagsson and Jalira, Master Polymorphist can be used in a similar manner.

You could setup sacrifice outlets like Phyrexian Altar in conjunction with something that generates token creatures, like Kazandu Tuskcaller to get infinite mana.

---

In conclusion
If you're playing a self contained combo deck, then make sure you really look at how beneficial it is to have cards like Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff even as purely backup cards, because you might find they don't help you as much as you think.

It seems counter intuitive because Intruder Alarm is a signature card, literally in 62% of decks being analysed by EDHREC. Thornbite Staff is in a lot less at about a quarter of decks.
But I want it to be clear that it can be an easy trap for some people thinking that they will be automatically be great in their decks.

But in decks that are specifically designed around them they will be all-stars, and possibly actually necessary as a win condition.

You can look to have indefinite chains with Loaming Shaman and Body Double or Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre/Worldspine Wurm, as these are attractive loops for wins.

It is possible to just play Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff for pure value however, and the results can still be so over-whelming that it's a game winning play.
In this respect your creature base might just be a solid mid-range deck, that can work without Prime Speaker Vannifar in play in general. Gaining enough value just through casting solid creatures that can interact enough with opponents to slow them down, or gain you some additional resources.

Intruder Alarm is a combo card in it's own right, so it is possible to setup alternative win conditions without Prime Speaker Vannifar as a back up plan. There is a wealth of combinations, so it comes down to if you feel like the cards fit into your build in a synergistic way.

Retreat to Coralhelm / Tideforce Elemental

Retreat to Coralhelm

Tideforce Elemental

Most commander decks are going to benefit from ramping lands into play, but we can really get things going with a couple of cards that can look to chain together 'landfall' with untapping Prime Speaker Vannifar to keep reusing her.

With Retreat to Coralhelm and Tideforce Elemental you can keep searching for creatures that put lands into play, to subsequently untap Vannifar.
Tideforce Elemental however requires you to have U each time, so might be better served with Earthcraft, Amulet of Vigor or some other way to keep paying.





With Retreat to Coralhelm or Tideforce Elemental in play;
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Veteran Explorer into -> Primal Druid getting two basic lands.
2.) Untap Vannifar with landfall trigger.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Primal Druid into -> Spellseeker getting Crop Rotation.
4.) Untap Vannifar with landfall trigger.
5.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Spellseeker into -> World Shaper.
6.) Cast Crop Rotation for G sacrificing a land to get any land you want.
7.) Untap Vannifar with landfall trigger.
8.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice World Shaper into -> Seedguide Ash.
9.) Untap Vannifar with landfall trigger.
10.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Seedguide Ash into ..

At this stage you can branch off a number of different ways.

Because this sequence specifically goes off 'dies' triggers, you'll be able to go into a Six Drop creature and have Prime Speaker Vannifar untapped.
This means that you'll be able to sacrifice the Six Drop creature into a Seven Drop creature.

You'll have at least 8 extra lands in play, so you could go Avenger of Zendikar.
Next turn you could then sacrifice the Avenger of Zendikar into Craterhoof Behemoth for total damage likely to kill at least 3 opponents.

You could look at Ulvenwald Hydra or Realm Seekers as your Six Drop creature.
You can get Wirewood Lodge or Minamo, School at Water's Edge with Ulvenwald Hydra and because you get to untap it with Palinchron, that'll give you access to start combing again, by untapping Prime Speaker Vannifar.

Chakram Retriever

It's a card that acts as a mini Paradox Engine, but you can search it out with Prime Speaker Vannifar.

At Five converted mana cost, is often a sticking point for Prime Speaker Vannifar builds unless you truly sequence things in particular ways.

If we are chaining into Chakram Retriever and wanting to keep it in play to get multiple uses from it, maybe every turn, then you need to have a plan.
Maybe the best thing to do is assume you have another creature in play to carry on Prime Speaker Vannifar chains if you're going to setup Chakram Retriever.

Your build is also going to want to have a number of cheap spells to cast. But at the same time it's not like you need a lot of spells to get value, casting even a couple of spells one or two mana spells is going to do a lot for you.

You can easily sequence into it from anywhere from a Zero to a Four Drop. Then you just cast a spell to untap Vannifar, and use other creatures to keep chains going.
Once again you might not be looking for auto-win style decks. Instead looking fun and value out of your chaining.
Whether that is land ramp creatures, or maybe more geared towards a controlling and disruptive deck.

Cards like this will allow you to chain up sequences more like this;
Vendilion Clique -> Glen Elendra Archmage -> Somberwald Stag -> Bane of Progress -> Keiga, the Tide Star -> Meteor Golem -> Terastodon.
Leaving a wake of destruction behind you, if this is more your style.

What cheap spells and how do I better guarantee that I have them to cast?
Well if your deck doesn't have a lot of draw, then you can be a bit reliant on what you have in hand already at the stage of getting Chakram Retriever.
There are a wealth of different ways you could build your deck to accommodate this more, too many to mention them all.

But certainly if your deck was playing more of the cantrips like, Preordain, Ponder, Gitaxian Probe, to name a few.
In this respect a card like Chakram Retriever will actually serve you better than other combo cards like Thornbite Staff, Intruder Alarm, Paradox Engine, to an extent.
The reason is that you can't search for enchantments or artifacts (artifacts that are not part of the 'Mages' 0,1,3,6+).

However with Chakram Retriever you can put it into play off Prime Speaker Vannifar.

Sure you can get more upside from the other combo cards, and you need to have cards and mana to get multiple uses out of Chakram Retriever, but if your deck is setup for it more, then I'm just highlighting how much more likely you can setup yourself up.
Plus there is the added bonus of not relying on other cards types other than 'creatures', so you can sequence into Bane of Progress for example without losing anything.

More draw and mana might be appropriate.
You can sequence for example Relentless Skaabs -> Prime Speaker Zegana to draw you at least 6 cards, giving you plenty of fuel for casting cards.

Now remember you can actually use Chakram Retriever to untap mana sources as well if needing to cast spells.
So it might be that you play a few more tap for more mana sources like; Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, Krosan Restorer, Argothian Elder, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix.

The idea is that you could alternate between chaining up generating mana for casting spells.

Here is a sample sequence, there are literally hundreds of different paths you could draw up for yourself, but this is one I came up with to demonstrate using Chakram Retriever multiple times in a turn.
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Three Drop creature into -> Breaching Hippocamp to untap Vannifar.
2.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Breaching Hippocamp into -> Chakram Retriever.
3.) Cast a spell to untap Vannifar with Chakram Retriever.
4.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice One Drop creature into -> Scryb Ranger returning a Forest to untap Vannifar.
5.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Scryb Ranger into -> Spellseeker getting Gitaxian Probe.
6.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) to untap Vannifar with Chakram Retriever.
7.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Spellseeker into -> Archaeomancer returning Gitaxian Probe.
8.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) to untap Vannifar with Chakram Retriever.
9.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Archaeomancer into -> Mnemonic Wall returning Gitaxian Probe.
10.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) to untap Vannifar with Chakram Retriever.
11.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Mnemonic Wall into -> Greenwarden of Murasa returning Gitaxian Probe.
12.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) to untap Vannifar with Chakram Retriever.
13.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Greenwarden of Murasa into Protean Hulk.
14.) Exile Greenwarden of Murasa from graveyard to return Gitaxian Probe.
15.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) to untap Vannifar with Chakram Retriever.
16.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Protean Hulk into Tidespout Tyrant.
17.) Protean Hulk gets Trinket Mage, Naban, Dean of Iteration, Sylvan Safekeeper.
18.) Trinket Mage gets Mana Vault and Mana Crypt.
Now you can get infinite casting of spells with Tidespout Tyrant bouncing between Mana Vault and Mana Crypt, getting infinite colorless mana.
You will also get infinite triggers with Chakram Retriever, meaning infinite colored mana (with mana creature), as well as unlimited Prime Speaker Vannifar uses.

In conclusion
With Chakram Retriever I think is probably better in a lot of deck builds than say Thornbite Staff, Intruder Alarm, Paradox Engine, as you can get it into play with Prime Speaker Vannifar.

It is better to build slightly around it by including cheap casting cards like; Gitaxian Probe, Preordain, Ponder, Lotus Petal, Mox Diamond, Exploration, as examples.

If you already have a source of mana in play like Mana Vault or KrosaGalvanic Alchemisn Restorer, then you can just look to cast spells from your hand, potentially untapping the mana source to be able to cast more spells.

It also be noted that you can sequence from a Three Drop or Four Drop into Chakram Retriever. Now the relevance of this is that if you go all the way back into the main primer, I talk about Three Drop (or higher) not being very good to sequence from at the start of your turn, as you often require cards in graveyard for Mnemonic Wall and Body Double to do anything.
So with Chakram Retriever it does give you more scope to use kind of wasted Three Drop or Four Drop that might be in play from previous turns.

Illusionist's Bracers / Rings of Brighthearth

Illusionist's Bracers

Rings of Brighthearth

I initially misinterpreted how these worked with Prime Speaker Vannifar.
I thought that you'd need to sacrifice separate creatures for each copied activation, but this is not the case.

What happens is that you get to sacrifice a creature, and then you get to search for two creatures for the same converted mana cost.









"The animals went in two by two hurrah hurrah"



Being able to get multiple creatures from one activation is one of the most sort after attributes when using Prime Speaker Vannifar.
Woodland Bellower and Protean Hulk being the go to for many sequences because of being able to do this.

But here we have a way of combining creatures to do a number of things.

Rings of Brighthearth requires spending 2 but we know now that Prime Speaker Vannifar is always just a tap away from winning, so let's dive into what you could potentially setup with either of these artifacts.

With the ability to get two creatures at the same converted mana cost, you could easily go for an untapping creature, while the other provides some sort of combo or value, protection or disruption.

With untappers, you really can setup any type of creature combination wins that you want.

In the primer, there is a section 'Creature combinations' which will help you get some ideas of possible ways to win. I'm going to present some combo lines that I could think of.

With Illusionist's Bracers or Rings of Brighthearth in play.
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice One Drop into -> Pili-Pala + Scryb Ranger to return a Forest to untap Vannifar.
2.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Scryb Ranger into -> Grand Architect + Trophy Mage.
3.) Trophy Mage gets Thousand-Year Elixir.
4.) Tap Grand Architect and Trophy Mage for 4 using Grand Architect ability.
5.) Cast Thousand-Year Elixir for 3.
6.) Activate Grand Architect for U to make the Pili-Pala blue.
7.) You can get infinite mana.
8.) Untap Vannifar with Thousand-Year Elixir for t1.
*You can sacrifice Trophy Mage into whatever you need to win.
-OR-

With Illusionist's Bracers or Rings of Brighthearth in play.
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Two Drop into -> Grand Architect + Trophy Mage.
2.) Trophy Mage gets Thousand-Year Elixir.
3.) Tap Grand Architect and Trophy Mage for 4 using Grand Architect ability.
4.) Cast Thousand-Year Elixir for 3.
5.) Untap Vannifar with Thousand-Year Elixir for t1.
6.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Trophy Mage into -> {any Four Drop you want} + Fatestitcher (with haste now) to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar.
7.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Peregrine Drake + {any Five Drop you want} to untap your lands.
8.) Unearth Fatestitcher U to untap Vannifar.
9.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Peregrine Drake into -> {any Six Drop you want} + Deadeye Navigator soubound it to Prime Speaker Vannifar.
10.) Exile Prime Speaker Vannifar for 1U with soulbond ability and with Thousand-Year Elixir she can use her activated ability each time she comes into play.
11.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Body Double copying Peregrine Drake.
*This is the same as the normal Trophy Mage/Thousand-Year Elixir line except you get to pay for casting everything with Grand Architect, meaning you get to keep all your mana up for countering, etc.
Rings of Brighthearth costs 2, but that's still cheaper than 4.

With Illusionist's Bracers or Rings of Brighthearth in play.
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Two Drop into -> Laboratory Maniac + Bounding Krasis to untap Vannifar.
2.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Bounding Krasis into -> {any Four Drop you want} + Breaching Hippocamp to untap Vannifar.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Breaching Hippocamp into -> Leveler + Azami, Lady of Scrolls.
4.) Tap Azami, Lady of Scrolls to draw a card.
*Here is an example where if you had Rings of Brighthearth, then you'd only need to activate it twice for the Three Drop and the Five Drop.

With Illusionist's Bracers or Rings of Brighthearth in play.
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice One Drop into -> Scryb Ranger + Etherium Sculptor return a Forest to untap Vannifar.
2.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Scryb Ranger into -> Trinket Mage + Bounding Krasis to untap Vannifar.
3.) Trinket Mage get Sensei's Divining Top.
4.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Bounding Krasis into -> {any Four Drop you want} + Breaching Hippocamp to untap Vannifar.
5.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Breaching Hippocamp into -> Magus of the Future + {any Five Drop you want}.
*Here is an example where if you had Rings of Brighthearth, then you'd only need to activate it twice for the Two Drop and the Three Drop.

With Illusionist's Bracers or Rings of Brighthearth in play.
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice One Drop into -> Sage of Hours + Scryb Ranger to return a Forest to untap Vannifar.
2.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Scryb Ranger into -> {any Three Drop you want} + Bounding Krasis to untap Vannifar.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Bounding Krasis into -> Ezuri, Claw of Progress + Breaching Hippocamp to untap Vannifar.
4.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Breaching Hippocamp into -> Deranged Hermit + {any Five Drop you want}.
*Here is an example where if you had Rings of Brighthearth, then you'd only need to activate it twice for the Two Drop and the Four Drop.

These are just a few examples, there will be countless numbers of Simic combos you will be able to do. Too numerous for me to think of them all.

Another element you can look to do is to copy the creature that comes into play from an activation.
Two Drop; Jwari Shapeshifter, Phantasmal Image, Renegade Doppelganger, Shapesharer, Naban, Dean of Iteration.
Three Drop; Arcane Artisan, Cryptoplasm, Mirror Image.
Four Drop; Altered Ego, Bramble Sovereign, Clone, Gigantoplasm, Phyrexian Metamorph, Sakashima the Impostor, Sakashima's Student, Stunt Double, Unstable Shapeshifter, Vizier of Many Faces.
Five Drop; Body Double, Mercurial Pretender, Vesuvan Doppelganger, Vesuvan Shapeshifter, Quicksilver Elemental.
Six Drop; Progenitor Mimic.
Seven Drop; Quicksilver Gargantuan.

You can double up on creatures in a manner like I posted with Naban, Dean of Iteration.

You could double up on the triggers of the 'Mages' by using Mirror Image.
For example Trinket Mage copied by Mirror Image can get two artifacts like Sol Ring and Mana Crypt.
Trophy Mage can get Basalt Monolith and Rings of Brighthearth for example if using Illusionist's Bracers to get infinite colorless mana.
You could even sacrifice a One Drop creature into -> Naban, Dean of Iteration + Scryb Ranger to then get three triggers off your Wizards.

Spellseeker + Mirror Image can get Flash + Summoner's Pact for Protean Hulk.
Combine that with Naban, Dean of Iteration and get yourself a Pact of Negation for good measure as well.

You could get Spellseeker and Fierce Empath as Three Drops, getting Flash and Protean Hulk.

They are combo cards themselves
Illusionist's Bracers and Rings of Brighthearth are in themselves used for a lot of infinite combos.

If you equip a creature that can untap creatures like, Kiora's Follower, Aphetto Alchemist, Seeker of Skybreak, Vizier of Tumbling Sands, Fatestitcher, Tidewater Minion, then you can untap Vannifar and the creature itself.
Meaning that you can get unlimited uses out of Prime Speaker Vannifar.
If you use the ones that can untap any permanent with Kiora's Follower or Fatestitcher, then you can also get infinite mana.
Aphetto Alchemist can be used with artifacts to get infinite mana, and the creature only ones can be used with mana producing creatures for infinite as well.

Because Rings of Brighthearth cost 2 you'll need sources that produce 3 or more to get a similar effect. So you can pair it up with Basalt Monolith for infinite colorless.
Artifacts like Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, Thran Dynamo, Gilded Lotus, Coveted Jewel, can be used with Kiora's Follower, Aphetto Alchemist, Vizier of Tumbling Sands, Fatestitcher, Tidewater Minion to get infinite mana as they all tap for 3 or more.
You could do a similar thing if you can get a creature to tap for 3 or more, so potentially things like Priest of Titania, Elvish Archdruid, Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix, Wirewood Channeler, Karametra's Acolyte, etc. You can then use the creature untappers for infinite mana as well.

In conclusion
It's pretty obvious that the flood gates are open for multitudes of combos, with either Illusionist's Bracers or Rings of Brighthearth.
With Rings of Brighthearth you have to be realistic about how many times you can use it in a turn however, due to costing 2 each time.

If you can equip Prime Speaker Vannifar with Illusionist's Bracers, then most builds are going to be able to setup continuous chaining for some sort of combo win, or at least incredible value.
As I've shown you can easily chain into a number of different combo wins very easily.

With them, they also have infinite combos within a number of creatures that you might already being playing with your deck because they help to untap Vannifar, it's always going to be one of the most synergistic and powerful of the redundancy combo cards.
In this respect, they can be really great backup win conditions for when Prime Speaker Vannifar has been hated out of a game.

I can't stress how being able to get multiple creatures from a Prime Speaker Vannifar activation can really set you up. Being able to activate her multiple times in a turn is one thing, but you're only cycling through one creature normally. So being able to get more creatures into play for more chains, is really powerful.

Trophy Mage can search for Rings of Brighthearth, and Deadeye Quartermaster can search for Illusionist's Bracers.
Spellseeker can also get Muddle the Mixture to transmute for Illusionist's Bracers.

The number of ways that you can combine creature chains is too be honest mind boggling with Prime Speaker Vannifar, so I've given some examples, but this post would only scratch the surface.
I'm keen to hear about any combinations that people can think of, and I will add them to the primer if appropriate.

Galvanic Alchemist / Vigean Graftmage

Galvanic Alchemist

Vigean Graftmage

These are some creatures that can untap other creatures, but also have the ability to do it multiple times (unlimited) at the cost of mana.

They are both Three Drop and blue creatures. This means that you can't use Green Sun's Zenith, Summoner's Pact or Woodland Bellower to search for them.
Vigean Graftmage specifically needs a creature to have a +1/+1 counter on it. Even though it has graft, this means that you can only put the counters from it as the creature enters play. In this regard, using Prime Speaker Vannifar to put it into play, means that you can't specifically use the graft to give Prime Speaker Vannifar a counter. Meaning you need some other way of putting counters on her. I will discuss this further on.

You can look to untap mana creatures that can produce more than the required activation to actually get infinite mana.
But the other stipulation is that it must be able to provide at least U as well, so that cuts out a lot of the creatures that only produce green like Priest of Titania, Elvish Archdruid, Karametra's Acolyte, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix.
You could use Selvala, Heart of the Wilds if you have a creature with power 5 or greater.
Wirewood Channeler with at least 3 other elves for Galvanic Alchemist, or 2 other elves for Vigean Graftmage, will give you infinite mana. Prime Speaker Vannifar is an elf, so that means just in theory needing 2 other elves (Galvanic Alchemist) or 1 other elf (Vigean Graftmage).

There are more creatures like Axebane Guardian and Harabaz Druid, but they are tribal dependent, so highly unlikely to help.

You can use untapper creatures that can untap sources like Gilded Lotus and Converted Jewel.
Kiora's Follower, Aphetto Alchemist, Vizier of Tumbling Sands, Fatestitcher are some of the creatures that can untap Gilded Lotus or Converted Jewel, which will provide infinite mana with Vigean Graftmage.
Unfortunately you'd also need Biomancer's Familiar or Training Grounds to use Galvanic Alchemist the same way.

    

Needing 2U for Galvanic Alchemist and 1U for Vigean Graftmage can be reduced with either Biomancer's Familiar or Training Grounds.

If you wanted to play these cards then it leads into wanting the play other creatures that have activation's probably as well.
Now Deadeye Navigator already has an activation cost of 1U and so with these cards you can then use Cloud of Faeries as another way to get infinite mana.

Temur Sabertooth is another creature that can benefit from a reduced activation cost. Possibly opening up infinite's that you are looking to combine with it.

Yisan, the Wanderer Bard would only cost G which would open up some doors for particular builds.

If you do have a cost reduction card with Biomancer's Familiar or Training Grounds then you can look to use creatures that only provide at least 1U to get infinite mana; Bloom Tender, Selvala, Heart of the Wilds. Plus any of the previously mentioned mana creatures, can be done with less stipulations. For example Vigean Graftmage or Galvanic Alchemist untapping Wirewood Channeler can go infinite only with Prime Speaker Vannifar as well.

Creatures that can untap lands can also be used to match up with lands that will produce multiple mana. Argothian Elder,
Hope Tender, Krosan Restorer, Ley Weaver, Magus of the Candelabra could be combined with a number of cards, as long as you can gain mana when you activate Vigean Graftmage or Galvanic Alchemist to untap the creatures and untap the lands that can produce more.
So realistically you'll need Gaea's Cradle to tap for GGG.
If you had Biomancer's Familiar or Training Grounds then you could do it with any two lands essentially.

Vigean Graftmage specifically needs the creatures to have +1/+1 counters. There are a lot of cards in Simic that can do this, but it's going to come down to if they are also synergistic or at a low cost of resources to your deck already.
Some examples are Master Biomancer, Zameck Guildmage, Forgotten Ancient, Ezuri, Claw of Progress.
There are some lands; Oran-Rief, the Vastwood, Llanowar Reborn, Novijen, Heart of Progress, Forge of Heroes.

If you were to play to a +1/+1 matters then you could look at Incubation Druid as another means to get infinite mana combined with Vigean Graftmage.
Unfortunately you'd also need Biomancer's Familiar or Training Grounds to use Galvanic Alchemist the same way.

Alright so can we sequence into Galvanic Alchemist or Vigean Graftmage in a way that's going to allow us to win with Prime Speaker Vannifar?
Well the answer depends on how much mana you have and if you have another creature to sacrifice to Prime Speaker Vannifar?
You can obviously sacrifice a Two Drop to get Galvanic Alchemist, but then you'll need 2U and another creature to even just get the party started.
But what is your winning combination of creatures?
If you're going to try a get infinite mana with a mana creature then you'll need haste. You get into this odd position of needing to get a haste enabler if you don't have access to one already.
Please check out the section 'Haste' in the primer for details on various ways you can get this.

Let's aim for Galvanic Alchemist, Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, Surrak, the Hunt Caller in play all at the same time.

Getting 3 creatures into play off Prime Speaker Vannifar is exponentially harder depending on if you need to get multiple creatures off a single creature.
If you have 3 creatures in play, then you can just chain into Galvanic Alchemist using 2U to untap Vannifar each time, to chain the other two creatures into Selvala, Heart of the Wilds and Surrak, the Hunt Caller.

But if you only have two creatures, then your job is much harder because you have to sequence to get a couple of creatures;
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Two Drop creature into -> Galvanic Alchemist soulbond to Prime Speaker Vannifar.
2.) Untap Vannifar for 2U.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice another Two Drop creature into Spellseeker getting Green Sun's Zenith.
4.) Untap Vannifar for 2U.
5.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Spellseeker into -> Surrak, the Hunt Caller.
6.) Cast Green Sun's Zenith for 3G getting Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, soulbond to Galvanic Alchemist.
7.) At combat step Surrak, the Hunt Caller give's Selvala, Heart of the Wilds haste.
8.) Tap Selvala, Heart of the Wilds for G to get 5 mana, enabling you to get infinite mana with Galvanic Alchemist.

This method requires 7GGUU, which as you can see if pretty mana intensive. Using Galvanic Alchemist ability adds up real fast if needing to use it multiple times, and having to spend extra on Green Sun's Zenith is harder if needing to get further creatures into play.

Note that this isn't the only way. Maybe you have Scryb Ranger in your graveyard, so instead of Spellseeker you could get Eternal Witness, and then it'll cost 5GGUU all up.
Please check out the section 'Multiple creatures' in the primer for details on various ways you can look to get more creatures into play.

Is there a way to get Biomancer's Familiar and Galvanic Alchemist into play with Prime Speaker Vannifar?
Once again we are trying to get two creatures into play permanently, so would even need a third creature to chain to "do something" once you have them in play.
So if you have 3 creatures in play already then it's much easier. It's once you start having to get multiple creatures into play that it's more mana intensive, etc.

Lets look at a best case scenario;
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Two Drop creature into -> Galvanic Alchemist soulbond to Prime Speaker Vannifar.
2.) Untap Vannifar for 2U.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice another One Drop creature into -> Biomancer's Familiar.
4.) Untap Vannifar for U.
5.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice another One Drop creature into Cloud of Faeries to untap 2 lands.
6.) Untap Vannifar for U.
7.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Cloud of Faeries into -> Bounding Krasis to untap Vannifar.
8.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Bounding Krasis into -> Fatestitcher (no haste).
9.) Untap Vannifar for U.
10.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Peregrine Drake to untap 5 lands.
11.) Untap Vannifar for U.
12.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Peregrine Drake into -> Deadeye Navigator.
11.) Untap Vannifar for U.
13.) Unearth Fatestitcher for U (no haste).
14.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Body Double copying Peregrine Drake.

This method requires 2UU as long as you have 3 lands that can provide U each, as Cloud of Faeries and Peregrine Drake untap them along the way allowing you to free up mana for the Galvanic Alchemist activation's.
But you literally need 2 x One Drop and a Two Drop creature at the start. This does happen during some games, you draw your mana creatures, and in the right build having a Two Drop is the norm during games.
Note that you could use Glen Elendra Archmage instead of Fatestitcher, and it'll actually cost you U less.

In conclusion
There are going to be hundreds, if not thousands of ways to combine all the cards I mentioned in this post to sequence ways to win. But it's all going to come down to efficiency.

If you already have a cost reduction card like Biomancer's Familiar or Training Grounds, then your options are much better.
You could then use Galvanic Alchemist for untapping creatures for just U. This opens the door for any amount of sequencing you want really.

If you have a haste enabler already then you can just aim for mana creature that allows you to go infinite with Vigean Graftmage or Galvanic Alchemist if you also have the means to meet the other requirements of getting the mana creatures to produce more than the activation cost.

If you were to look at using Vigean Graftmage then you're going to need to play some number of +1/+1 counter enablers.
For example maybe you're playing Flash + Protean Hulk with Ezuri, Claw of Progress + Sage of Hours as a win condition. You could easily look to also add Incubation Druid, Oran-Rief, the Vastwood, Llanowar Reborn, Novijen, Heart of Progress, Forge of Heroes, as bare-bones to potentially getting it to work with Prime Speaker Vannifar and some premium mana creatures.

If you were to play Biomancer's Familiar, then as I've already mentioned this might lead you on to play other cards that also would benefit from cost reduction.

I think if you were to truly look to leverage Galvanic Alchemist and Vigean Graftmage then your build would probably want most of the proactive cards I've mentioned in this post as they all work together.

The honest truth is that I could spend days coming up with a deck build melding synergy into these creatures.
Trying to come up with sequences is also too numerous for the amount of time I can spend on these posts
However that does not mean that I will not endeavour to document as ideas come to mind. So this section will be added to the primer under 'Spotlight on Potential Cards' and I will add to it as things unfold in the future.

It is always important to point out that Galvanic Alchemist and Vigean Graftmage are creatures, and as such are often better in your deck that say Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff, as they allow you to plan for getting into play with Prime Speaker Vannifar, as opposed to hoping to randomly draw them.
So if you have a deck that looks to do multiple things with creatures, like disruption, value, etc, then a well setup untapper will allow you to do these things.

There are more efficient combo lines in general, so as far as looking to make Galvanic Alchemist and Vigean Graftmage one turn win combos, they are not the most mana efficient due to literally costing mana each time you use them.

Naban, Dean of Iteration

Naban, Dean of Iteration is an interesting card, especially considering how much work Spellseeker and the "Mages" Trinket Mage, Trophy Mage, Treasure Mage can give you access to key cards in your deck.
Also you can have further graveyard retrieval triggers in the form of Archaeomancer and Scrivener (instead of Mnemonic Wall).
I've actually spent hours trying to assimilate Naban, Dean of Iteration into combo lines.

If you have Naban, Dean of Iteration, then you can just go for Spellseeker, triggering twice, getting for example Flash and Summoner's Pact, allowing you to get Protean Hulk.

This is great obviously, but there is no easy way to get Naban, Dean of Iteration into play and be able to chain into Spellseeker in a single turn.

It might be the sort of thing you can do if you have naturally drawn Naban, Dean of Iteration, so you can just play him out and then use you first other Two Drop creature into Spellseeker. Otherwise you're looking at complicated lines.

This example is if you actually chain from a Zero Drop creature;
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice a Zero Drop into -> Quirion Ranger returning a Forest to untap Vannifar.
2.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Quirion Ranger into -> Scryb Ranger returning a Forest to untap Vannifar.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Scryb Ranger into -> Spellseeker getting Nostalgic Dreams.
4.) Cast Nostalgic Dreams for GG and discarding two cards, returning Quirion Ranger and Scryb Ranger.
5.) Cast Quirion Ranger for G and return a Forest to untap Vannifar.
6.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Quirion Ranger into -> Naban, Dean of Iteration.
7.) Cast Scryb Ranger for 1G returning a Forest to untap Vannifar.
8.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Spellseeker into -> Breaching Hippocamp to untap Vannifar.
9.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Breaching Hippocamp into -> Body Double copying Spellseeker.
10.) With Naban, Dean of Iteration in play, Spellseeker triggers twice getting Flash and Summoner's Pact.

You'll need 2UGGGG, plus four Forests. Which ultimately is not very appealing if you're looking to specifically sequence into them off a single creature.

But you can see if you have an untap source naturally then it can be by far the most tempting way to get a lot of value and perhaps insurance along the way.

For example let's say at the start of your turn you have Prime Speaker Vannifar and an untapper like Minamo, School at Water's Edge along with say 2 x One Drop creature.

You can sacrifice a One Drop creature into Naban, Dean of Iteration and then untap Vannifar.
Now you can do the same sequence you'd normally do for the Protean Hulk/Vitalize line, but you're going to get more triggers.
For example Spellseeker can get Vitalize and Brainstorm.
This allows you to put back any creatures from your hand that you might be wanting to put into play off Prime Speaker Vannifar.
Archaeomancer can get back the Vitalize and Brainstorm.
Scrivener will allow you to do the same again, giving you a way to mold your hand (and library) to better disrupt opponents if they decided to get cleaver.

Another method;
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Two Drop into -> Spellseeker for Summoner's Pact.
2.) Cast Summoner's Pact for 0 getting Quirion Ranger.
3.) Cast Quirion Ranger for G and return a Forest to untap Vannifar.
4.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Spellseeker into -> Archaeomancer returning Summoner's Pact.
5.) Cast Summoner's Pact for 0 getting Wirewood Symbiote.
6.) Cast Wirewood Symbiote for G.
7.) Return Quirion Ranger with Wirewood Symbiote to untap Vannifar.
8.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Wirewood Symbiote into -> Naban, Dean of Iteration.
9.) Cast Quirion Ranger for G and return a Forest to untap Vannifar.
10.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Archaeomancer into -> Body Double copying Spellseeker getting Flash and Regrowth.
11.) Cast Regrowth for 1G returning Summoner's Pact.
12.) Cast Summoner's Pact for 0 getting Protean Hulk.
13.) Cast Flash for 1U with Protean Hulk.

This method also requires that you'll need 2UGGGG.

Now if you did want to play Naban, Dean of Iteration, then you should cater for some of the other "Mages" as well.
Trinket Mage can give you access to a lot of fast artifact mana; Chrome Mox, Lion's Eye Diamond, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Mana Vault. You could even look at card draw with Sensei's Divining Top and Voltaic Key.
With Trophy Mage we already have Thousand-Year Elixir. But there are a lot of combo cards at 3 cmc;
Umbral Mantle, Ashnod's Altar, Phyrexian Altar, Rings of Brighthearth, Basalt Monolith, Inspiring Statuary, to name a few.
Treasure Mage also has plenty of artifacts that you could look to abuse.

In conclusion
Although it's unlikely that you'll specifically try to sequence into Naban, Dean of Iteration with limited resources, if you have an untapper already and a spare creature to chain, then it's a very tempting creature to get first.
If you naturally draw it and play it, then it can set you up very easily for a Flash + Protean Hulk.
If you did play Naban, Dean of Iteration the you'd just want to play a few more cards that you can get bonuses off.

Azusa, Lost but Seeking

The reason is that with Quirion Ranger and Scryb Ranger as key cards probably in any Prime Speaker Vannifar build, the ability to get multiple untaps and even gain mana off Azusa, Lost but Seeking is certainly worth a look at.
Also Exploration can be similar, but more explosive if you have it early on in the game. But because you can't use Prime Speaker Vannifar to search for it remains random to whether you draw it or not.

Now if you can get Quirion Ranger, Scryb Ranger and Azusa, Lost but Seeking into play at the same time, the Forest that you return can be played out each time you'd use a Ranger. So not only can you untap any creature, it might be Prime Speaker Vannifar, but it could even be a mana creature. Returning the Forest will mean that you guarantee making additional land drops for the turn, gaining extra mana from that as well.

Getting Azusa, Lost but Seeking into play with even at least one of these creatures isn't that simply however. Once again there is no simple chain with Prime Speaker Vannifar that will allow you to do it easily.

Now this is also less about cEDH play, and more about casual or competitive play where you've geared up for less about one-turn-wins and trying to setup for more battle-cruiser games.

If you can setup multiple untaps each turn, then you can look to get more value creatures, rather than combo lines.

This example is if you actually chain from a Zero Drop creature;

1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice a Zero Drop into -> Quirion Ranger returning a Forest to untap Vannifar.
2.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Quirion Ranger into -> Scryb Ranger returning a Forest to untap Vannifar.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Scryb Ranger into -> Spellseeker getting Nostalgic Dreams.
4.) Cast Nostalgic Dreams for GG and discarding two cards, returning Quirion Ranger and Scryb Ranger.
5.) Cast Quirion Ranger for G and return a Forest to untap Vannifar.
6.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Spellseeker into -> Breaching Hippocamp to untap Vannifar.
7.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Breaching Hippocamp into -> Body Double copying Spellseeker getting Green Sun's Zenith.
8.) Cast Green Sun's Zenith for 3G getting Azusa, Lost but Seeking.
9.) Play two Forest from your hand.
10.) Cast Scryb Ranger for 1G and return a Forest to untap Vannifar.
*Now you have Quirion Ranger, Scryb Ranger and Azusa, Lost but Seeking in play.

In subsequent turns you'll get two additional untaps and most likely two additional mana.

If your build had Paradox Engine, then you can see how excellent this sort of sequencing is with mana creatures in play, as you get to keep putting more creatures into play while also casting spells to trigger the Paradox Engine.

In conclusion
Azusa, Lost but Seeking normally wants to be in decks with a lot of card draw to get use out of the additional land drops you can make. But you can see in a Prime Speaker Vannifar deck that looks to use Quirion Ranger and Scryb Ranger as additional untappers, and not just as means to chain up one time only, that Azusa, Lost but Seeking is a really great card.

She also will allow you to potentially get more 'landfall' triggers if your deck has Retreat to Coralhelm or Tideforce Elemental.

Timestream Navigator

With Prime Speaker Vannifar ability to search for any creature, being able to search Timestream Navigator potentially every turn..well you guessed it, can get you infinite turns. So you can look for this card to be a win condition.

But there are some requirements in order to be able to do this. Firstly you need to always have a creature to sacrifice. If you are sacrificing creatures then you need to be able to produce them from somewhere.
The other thing is that you will need some way of giving the Timestream Navigator haste or be able to activate it's ability because of summoning sickness. Otherwise you'll only get an extra turn every alternative turn, which honestly isn't the worst
But for true infinite you'll need to have some way of doing all this.

The City Blessing is another requirement, as well as spending 2UU, but these are not hard to achieve.

You are going to need to chain from a One Drop into Timestream Navigator.
How do you produce a One Drop creature every turn?
There is no easy way to keep producing an actual One Drop each turn that I have found or can think of.

Creating token creatures seems to be the only feasible way of doing this, which means that you can produce Zero costing creatures. So then you have to go Zero Drop into One Drop into Timestream Navigator.

There are hundreds of ways to potentially create token creatures, but just for example some of the easier ways are;
Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter, Kazandu Tuskcaller, Master of the Wild Hunt, Tendershoot Dryad.
If you specifically sacrifice Tukatongue Thallid or Blisterpod as your One Drop, then you'll get a token creature.

Another way to get creatures into play that are non-Zero costing tokens, is with Bramble Sovereign. You could potential copy the One Drop creature you search for and make a copy.

If we are going Zero Drop into One Drop into Timestream Navigator, then this also means that we need an untapper. You really need some sort of on-board untapper when looking to go infinite.

Also for true infinite, if you're having to search up a One Drop creature each time, then it's going to either be dependent on how many one drops you have in the deck, or an ability to put a One Drop continuously back in your library.
Cards that can put cards from graveyard back into your library;
Hua Tuo, Honored Physician, Battlefield Scrounger, Elvish Soultiller, Epitaph Golem,
Soldevi Digger, Reito Lantern, Bow of Nylea.
Academy Ruins can put an One Drop artifact creature.

So our checklist of things looks like this;

• Creature generator.
• On-board untapper for Prime Speaker Vannifar.
• Mitigate Timestream Navigator summoning sickness.
• Ability to continuously put cards back from graveyard into library.

You can see that even though it looks like it should be a simply combo first of all, it actually requires quite a few very specific moving parts.

There will be a ton of different ways you can set this up, but I'll give you some example sequences.

Because Thousand-Year Elixir can check-off both mitigating summoning sickness and give you an on-board untapper, I feel like this will probably be key to helping you achieve this as a win condition.

I'm going to use Trophy Mage/Thousand-Year Elixir line, but also going to mix it in with Protean Hulk to better set us up.
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Two Drop creature into -> Trophy Mage getting Thousand-Year Elixir.
2.) Cast Thousand-Year Elixir for 3 and untap Vannifar with Thousand-Year Elixir for t1.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Trophy Mage into -> Fatestitcher (with haste now) to untap Vannifar.
4.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Tidewater Minion to untap Vannifar.
5.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Tidewater Minion into -> Woodland Bellower getting Bounding Krasis to untap Vannifar.
6.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Woodland Bellower into -> Protean Hulk.
7.) Unearth Fatestitcher U to untap Vannifar.
8.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Protean Hulk into ..
9.) Getting Timestream Navigator + Tukatongue Thallid + Birds of Paradise + Arbor Elf + Elvish Mystic + Dryad Arbor.
10.) Activate Timestream Navigator for 2UU to take an extra turn.
*Note that you can tap all the mana creatures for mana because of Thousand-Year Elixir, so these can literally pay the 2UU for the Timestream Navigator.
*We also literally have the City's Blessing with at minimum 8 permanents plus how ever many lands and other cards you've put into play.

Next turn..
Method using Tukatongue Thallid for infinite creature sacrifices.
11.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Tukatongue Thallid into -> Timestream Navigator.
12.) Tukatongue Thallid creates a 1/1 Saproling.
13.) Activate Timestream Navigator for 2UU to take an extra turn.
14.) Untap Vannifar with Thousand-Year Elixir for t1.
15.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Bounding Krasis into -> Breaching Hippocamp to untap Vannifar.
16.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Breaching Hippocamp into -> Body Double copying Trophy Mage getting Bow of Nylea.
17.) Cast Bow of Nylea for 1GG.
18.) Activate Bow of Nylea for t1G putting Tukatongue Thallid on bottom of library.
*Note you don't actually have to cast and activate the Bow of Nylea straight away, you can wait a few turns as you got a number of One Drops from Protean Hulk anyway.

Now you can keep putting both Timestream Navigator and Tukatongue Thallid onto the bottom of your library to have infinite turns.
You can sacrifice the 1/1 Saproling into Tukatongue Thallid, untap Vannifar with Thousand-Year Elixir and chain into Timestream Navigator. The Bow of Nylea keeps letting you get Tukatongue Thallid each time.

Method using Genesis for infinite creature sacrifices.
.
.
8.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Protean Hulk into ..
9.) Getting Timestream Navigator + Birds of Paradise + Arbor Elf + Elvish Mystic + Fyndhorn Elves + Dryad Arbor.
10.) Activate Timestream Navigator for 2UU to take an extra turn.

Next turn..
11.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Fyndhorn Elves into -> Timestream Navigator.
12.) Activate Timestream Navigator for 2UU to take an extra turn.
13.) Untap Vannifar with Thousand-Year Elixir for t1.
14.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Bounding Krasis into -> Breaching Hippocamp to untap Vannifar.
15.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Breaching Hippocamp into -> Genesis.

Next turn..
16.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Elvish Mystic into -> Timestream Navigator.
17.) Activate Timestream Navigator for 2UU to take an extra turn.
18.) Untap Vannifar with Thousand-Year Elixir for t1.
19.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Genesis into .. {anything you want}.

Next turn..
20.) Return Elvish Mystic to your hand with Genesis for 2G in upkeep.
21.) Cast Elvish Mystic for G.
22.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Elvish Mystic into -> Timestream Navigator.
23.) Activate Timestream Navigator for 2UU to take an extra turn.
*You can loop 20)-23)
This can free up an untap with Thousand-Year Elixir eventually as well.

Method using Dryad Arbor and Ramunap Excavator.
.
.
8.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Protean Hulk into ..
9.) Getting Timestream Navigator + Birds of Paradise + Arbor Elf + Elvish Mystic + Fyndhorn Elves + Dryad Arbor.
10.) Activate Timestream Navigator for 2UU to take an extra turn.
*This method allows us to get one more mana creature instead of Tukatongue Thallid.

Next turn..
11.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Fyndhorn Elves into -> Timestream Navigator.
12.) Activate Timestream Navigator for 2UU to take an extra turn.
13.) Untap Vannifar with Thousand-Year Elixir for t1.
14.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Elvish Mystic -> Scryb Ranger, return a Forest to untap Vannifar.
15.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Scryb Ranger into -> Ramunap Excavator.

Next turn..
16.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Dryad Arbor into -> Quirion Ranger, return a Forest to untap Vannifar.
17.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Quirion Ranger into -> Timestream Navigator.
18.) Activate Timestream Navigator for 2UU to take an extra turn.
19.) Untap Vannifar with Thousand-Year Elixir for t1.
20.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Bounding Krasis into -> Breaching Hippocamp to untap Vannifar.
21.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Breaching Hippocamp into -> Body Double copying Trophy Mage getting Bow of Nylea.
22.) Cast Bow of Nylea for 1GG.

Next turn..
23.) Play Dryad Arbor from graveyard with Ramunap Excavator.
24.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Dryad Arbor into -> One Drop creature.
25.) Untap Vannifar with Thousand-Year Elixir for t1.
26.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice One Drop creature into -> Timestream Navigator.
27.) Activate Timestream Navigator for 2UU to take an extra turn.
28.) Activate Bow of Nylea for 1G putting One Drop creature on bottom of library.
*You can just keep looping 23)-28).

The downside to this method is that your land drop is always tied up with Dryad Arbor, which isn't too bad, you should be able to do what you need to win anyway. You will be down a mana creature, even though you got an additional one at the start.

But now you can make your One Drop any creature, so for example you might choose;
Blisterpod for infinite colorless mana.
Servant of the Scale infinitely large creature(s), with at least Prime Speaker Vannifar.
Merrow Witsniper mill people as an alternate win condition.
Elvish Pioneer to partially mitigate the Dryad Arbor always taking the land drop for the turn.

In conclusion
This is actually a really nice alternative to Peregrine Drake and Deadeye Navigator, as you don't need 3 lands in play.
You need 4U to start it off, but not having 3 lands is an advantage if you've been using Quirion Ranger and Scryb Ranger, and you're using Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, mana creatures, etc to pay for casting and activating the Thousand-Year Elixir.

Because it specifically requires Thousand-Year Elixir to work, you can't just sacrifice Protean Hulk using any line for a win.
So you can't just use Flash + Protean Hulk this combo, without needing more mana.

For example you could Flash + Protean Hulk into Timestream Navigator + Trophy Mage + Birds of Paradise + Dryad Arbor.
You can cast the Thousand-Year Elixir and Birds of Paradise, Dryad Arbor can tap for mana, so you need 5UU all up, but the mana creatures will mean that you only need to have an extra 3UU.

Actually you could go Timestream Navigator + Tukatongue Thallid + Vitaspore Thallid + Sidisi's Faithful + Dryad Arbor.
Sacrifice Tukatongue Thallid with Sidisi's Faithful.
Sacrifice the 1/1 Saproling with Vitaspore Thallid to give Timestream Navigator haste and activate it.
In your next turn, you'll still need to setup Thousand-Year Elixir because you need haste for every turn for the Timestream Navigator, so it'll require some specific sequencing again.
But you could potential start this off with 2UU instead if really pushed for mana.

Now the reason I picked Tukatongue Thallid over Blisterpod is because I've discussed it's synergy with Vitaspore Thallid to be able to give a creature haste. So it's just better to think in terms of how your build might be able to incorporate both these.

Arcum Dagsson

At first this seems like an unusual card to talk about considering he is already a commander that you can play as your general, rather than in your 99.
However Prime Speaker Vannifar has this ornate ability to search up any creature in your deck. So she becomes a proxy to any creature you want.

This isn't about a building an "Arcum Dagsson" deck with Prime Speaker Vannifar, but how Arcum Dagsson can be both powerful and synergistic in your 99 without too much effort, if built a certain way.

What specifically would we be wanting to search with Arcum Dagsson?
If you read my posts focused on Birthing Pod on Page 5, you'll might have noted how particular artifacts can used to create an alternative method of chaining into creatures when Prime Speaker Vannifar is not at your disposal (i.e she has been hated out).

Birthing Pod, Paradox Engine, Isochron Scepter combined with Dramatic Reversal are all things that you can look to use to get indefinite uses out of particular cards, and are substitute combos with and sometimes without Prime Speaker Vannifar.

Wait but you need to have artifact creatures to sacrifice to him!
Well this is where your deck might diverge into more artifact themed build.

You might have a deck that already plays some artifact creatures like, Memnite, Ornithopter, Walking Ballista, Hangarback Walker as a way to combo with Ezuri, Claw of Progress and Sage of Hours with Protean Hulk.
But 4 artifact creatures does not justify being able to use Arcum Dagsson in a consistent manner.

So what other artifact creatures might one play?
Well colored mana creatures are always welcome, so even though they cost a little more than their counterparts Copper Myr and Silver Myr are fine additions.

You could look at the graveyard retrieval creatures has they have inherit synergy with Prime Speaker Vannifar sacrificing creatures.
Myr Retriever, Junk Diver, Workshop Assistant, Scrap Trawler are ways of getting value in a Prime Speaker Vannifar chain. You can get back the creature that was initially sacrificed, allowing you to get multiple creatures into play.
With Paradox Engine in play, this allows sequential casting to keep untapping.

Other solid utility creatures include Phyrexian Revoker, Solemn Simulacrum.
With more colorless spells in your deck you should be able to play Blinkmoth Nexus and Inkmoth Nexus as ways to have artifacts creatures as well.

I personally think 10 artifact creatures is around the minimum you'd play to have more of chance of drawing one, but you can always use Prime Speaker Vannifar to get one in a pinch.

So how would you use Arcum Dagsson?
Well as I said he can search for combo cards that synergies within a Prime Speaker Vannifar build.

Let's look at him in two different ways. One where you want to use him with Prime Speaker Vannifar in play and another where you are looking to use him as a backup plan for when Prime Speaker Vannifar is hated out.

Arcum Dagsson With Prime Speaker Vannifar

You can chain Trophy Mage getting Thousand-Year Elixir, then untap Vannifar to sacrifice Trophy Mage into Arcum Dagsson. He has haste with Thousand-Year Elixir, so any artifact creature will allow you to search something straight away.

Now you if you have a spell to cast, then you can get Paradox Engine to untap both Prime Speaker Vannifar and Arcum Dagsson, and there are going to be a lot of different things you can do with both of them.

You can use Prime Speaker Vannifar to get another artifact creature like, Myr Retriever, Junk Diver, Workshop Assistant, Scrap Trawler, then sacrifice again to Arcum Dagsson.
You'll be able to get an artifact back from graveyard via the dies trigger, and this will just give you another spell to cast to untap them with Paradox Engine.
You really want some amount of artifact mana and/or mana creatures to pay for casting spells. You should be able to setup some spicy chains.

Arcum Dagsson Without Prime Speaker Vannifar
Probably the more important aspect of Arcum Dagsson in a deck is to have a backup plan if Prime Speaker Vannifar has been hated out of a game.

You can look to setup with Paradox Engine and Birthing Pod or Isochron Scepter combined with Dramatic Reversal, as a means to duplicate what Prime Speaker Vannifar would normally do for your deck.

With Arcum Dagsson you can get both Paradox Engine and Birthing Pod into play with a couple of artifact creatures.

Here is an example of a sequence you could do;
1.) With Paradox Engine and Birthing Pod in play.
2.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Two Drop creature into -> Spellseeker getting Gitaxian Probe.
3.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) to untap Vannifar with Paradox Engine.
4.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Spellseeker into -> Archaeomancer returning Gitaxian Probe.
5.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) to untap Vannifar with Paradox Engine.
6.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Archaeomancer into -> Mnemonic Wall returning Gitaxian Probe.
7.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) Mnemonic Wall to untap Vannifar with Paradox Engine.
8.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) into -> Greenwarden of Murasa returning Gitaxian Probe.
9.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) to untap Vannifar with Paradox Engine.
10.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Greenwarden of Murasa into Protean Hulk.
11.) Exile Greenwarden of Murasa from graveyard to return Gitaxian Probe.
12.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) to untap Vannifar with Paradox Engine.
13.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Protean Hulk into ..

This is also an example sequence of just winning with some other combo cards;
1.) Activate Arcum Dagsson sacrifice artifact creature to put Paradox Engine into play.
2.) Cast a spell, untapping non-land permanents.
3.) Activate Arcum Dagsson sacrifice artifact creature to put Citanul Flute into play.
4.) Activate Citanul Flute for [mana]0[mana] getting Zero Drop Creature.
5.) Cast Zero Drop Creature, untapping non-land permanents.
6.) Activate Arcum Dagsson Zero Drop Creature to put Mana Vault into play.
7.) Activate Citanul Flute for [mana]2[mana] getting Myr Retriever.
8.) Cast Myr Retriever for [mana]2[mana], untapping non-land permanents.
9.) Activate Citanul Flute for [mana]3[mana] getting Junk Diver.
10.) Cast Junk Diver for [mana]3[mana], untapping non-land permanents.
11.) Chain Junk Diver, Myr Retriever for infinite mana.
12.) Activate Citanul Flute for [mana]0[mana] getting Walking Ballista.

In conclusion
If you were already thinking of some sort of more artifact centric build, then you can do a lot with Arcum Dagsson, Paradox Engine, Birthing Pod, Isochron Scepter/Dramatic Reversal in your deck, to name a few.
Support cards are needed, like playing a number of artifact creatures, but the point is that you would be playing them anyway if your build was hoping to use artifacts more.

There are a lot of combos that involve creature(s) and artifact(s), so with Prime Speaker Vannifar ability to search for creatures, and Arcum Dagsson ability to search for artifacts, you can look to combine them to get your pieces.
Let's not forget that Prime Speaker Vannifar can search for Arcum Dagsson, thus allowing you access to your artifacts.

Elite Arcanist

If you have Vitalize or Dramatic Reversal in hand at the time Elite Arcanist comes into play then you can look to setup to go infinite with other non-land mana sources, like artifact mana and mana creatures (Vitalize only).
It works in very much the same way as Isochron Scepter.
The difference, besides cost, between Isochron Scepter and Elite Arcanist is that as a creature it also has summoning sickness, meaning you can't use it the turn it comes into play.

The most obvious way is to chain into Spellseeker to get Vitalize or Dramatic Reversal. But there is no obvious way to untap Vannifar and give Elite Arcanist haste in the same turn, for some sort of one turn win, like we've setup with a lot of other combo chains.

How about if Prime Speaker Vannifar is in play?
Unfortunately there is no easy way to chain a combo. This is the best method I could come up with when you have limited support cards;
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Two Drop creature into -> Trophy Mage getting Thousand-Year Elixir.
2.) Cast Thousand-Year Elixir for 3 and untap Vannifar with Thousand-Year Elixir for t1.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice another Two Drop creature into -> Spellseeker getting Vitalize.
4.) Cast Vitalize to untap Vannifar.
5.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Spellseeker into -> Fatestitcher (with haste now) to untap Vannifar.
6.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Fatestitcher into Body Double copying Spellseeker getting Dramatic Reversal.
7.) Unearth Fatestitcher U to untap Vannifar.
8.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Trophy Mage into -> Elite Arcanist exiling Dramatic Reversal.
Now you can get infinite activation's of Elite Arcanist if you have at least 2 in non-land mana sources.
Note that at Step 4.) You could get Dramatic Reversal instead and exile Vitalize instead at Step 9.) if you wanted to only spend 1 each time. It's just going to come down to artifact mana versus mana creatures, which you'd prefer.

This method requires 6GU and 2 x Two Drop creatures. Realistically you want some forms of non-land mana sources, as this will actually allow you to get infinite mana, if you can get more than the cost of what you exile with Elite Arcanist.
But compare this with the 4 you need for Peregrine Drake and Deadeye Navigator combo, and you can see that this would only be purely used as a backup.

If you have Concordant Crossroads, Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots, then you can look to use Elite Arcanist straight away. But it's still not that simple. You need a way to untap Vannifar without using the Vitalize/Dramatic Reversal, as you need it in hand at the time Elite Arcanist comes into play.
So really you need to naturally have another untapper as well as haste, to be able to combo easily.

Naban, Dean of Iteration or Panharmonicon are cards that you can look to combine with Spellseeker to get you both a graveyard retrieval card and untapper spells.
You could get Vitalize/Dramatic Reversal and Regrowth, so that you could chain into Elite Arcanist and get back the Vitalize/Dramatic Reversal in timely manner.

Illusionist's Bracers or Rings of Brighthearth are cards you can use to get double creatures for the purposes of combing.
You can sacrifice Two Drop creature into -> Spellseeker getting Vitalize/Dramatic Reversal and also Trophy Mage getting Thousand-Year Elixir.
Now you can untap Vannifar with Thousand-Year Elixir, and also chain into Elite Arcanist exiling Vitalize/Dramatic Reversal. You'll have haste as well, so you can look to combo straight away with Elite Arcanist.
You could also go at Three Drop, Spellseeker for Vitalize/Dramatic Reversal and Bounding Krasis. Then at Four Drop go Elite Arcanist and Surrak, the Hunt Caller for haste. Or Deadeye Quartermaster getting Lightning Greaves for example.

What if Prime Speaker Vannifar is not in play?
Elite Arcanist exiling Dramatic Reversal also enables you to use Birthing Pod in the same manner as Prime Speaker Vannifar.
In this respect you can look for it to be a way to win when Prime Speaker Vannifar has been hated out of a game. However without haste, it is a slower process as you have to wait several turns.

1.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Two Drop creature into -> Spellseeker getting Dramatic Reversal.
2.) Pass the turn.
3.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Spellseeker into -> Elite Arcanist exiling Dramatic Reversal.
4.) Pass the turn.
On your next turn you can tap Elite Arcanist to keep untapping itself and Birthing Pod.

As you can see without haste you have to wait a full turn to activate Elite Arcanist. And without burning the Dramatic Reversal before you get Arcanist into play, you have to wait a full turn to get the Birthing Pod untapped.

I have already shown in the primer how to use Dramatic Reversal with graveyard retrieval creatures Archaeomancer, Mnemonic Wall, Greenwarden of Murasa to curve into Protean Hulk with Birthing Pod as well.

1.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Two Drop creature into -> Spellseeker getting Dramatic Reversal.
2.) Cast Dramatic Reversal for 1U to untap Birthing Pod and hopefully mana creature(s) and/or artifact mana.
3.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Spellseeker into -> Archaeomancer returning Dramatic Reversal.
4.) Cast Dramatic Reversal for 1U to untap Birthing Pod and hopefully mana creature(s) and/or artifact mana.
5.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Archaeomancer into -> Mnemonic Wall returning Dramatic Reversal.
5.) Cast Dramatic Reversal for 1U to untap Birthing Pod and hopefully mana creature(s) and/or artifact mana.
7.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Mnemonic Wall into -> Greenwarden of Murasa returning Dramatic Reversal.
8.) Cast Dramatic Reversal for 1U to untap Birthing Pod and hopefully mana creature(s) and/or artifact mana.
9.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Greenwarden of Murasa into -> Protean Hulk.
10.) Exile Greenwarden of Murasa from your graveyard to return Dramatic Reversal.
11.) Cast Dramatic Reversal for 1U to untap Birthing Pod and hopefully mana creature(s) and/or artifact mana.
12.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Protean Hulk into ..

You can see that if you have this creature base then this is more appealing as in theory you can sequence for the same turn win, as long as you have the non-land mana sources to keep paying for the Dramatic Reversal.

In conclusion
On the surface Elite Arcanist looks like it could be a decent backup plan to a variety of ways to combo. But you do need to have support cards already to make it work in a timely manner.

It may seem like a good alternative to even Isochron Scepter as you can search it with Prime Speaker Vannifar. But as I've shown without a haste element, you end up waiting additional turns.

Even in the instance where you can use it in conjunction with Birthing Pod and Dramatic Reversal, the better option is to use Archaeomancer, Mnemonic Wall, Greenwarden of Murasa, Protean Hulk as an automatic way of winning, rather than needing delayed turns.

If you were wanting an alternative way to win without Peregrine Drake and Deadeye Navigator, then you can look to use a similar line with Trophy Mage/Thousand-Year Elixir and using Elite Arcanist with Vitalize and Dramatic Reversal.
But once again there is already a combo line you can look for with Vitalize that is far more mana efficient with Archaeomancer, Mnemonic Wall, Greenwarden of Murasa, Protean Hulk.

There are deck configurations where it can be good for your build. But it will require specific cards in my opinion and probably the absence of some other cards as well (like the graveyard retrieval creatures).
Decks that are already playing Illusionist's Bracers and Rings of Brighthearth will certainly make Elite Arcanist more appealing.

Riptide Shapeshifter

Probably one of the most overlooked cards in commander for what it could actually offer your deck as far as versatility of trading up.
It's ability to potentially get you any creature in certain builds will go unaware for many peoples long standing decks.

The complexity of even considering a card like this is that you have to evaluate every creature in your deck to know exactly how it performs. Adding and removing creatures as you tweak a deck, when playing Riptide Shapeshifter means that you have to think about how those creature types might effect your ability to get particular cards.

But what people wouldn't even factor in is that often this card can be turned into any creature in your deck. Finding out that frequently your more powerful creatures can be searched with one-off creature types.

Now in a Prime Speaker Vannifar build it serves as an excellent means to fill in the often awkward Five Drop creature, that are quite conditional on ability to untap Vannifar.
If we look at our other Five Drop creatures that we look to chain with, they all have stipulations;
Chakram Retriever needs spell to cast.
Disciple of the Ring needs instant or sorcery to exile from graveyard.
Mnemonic Wall, Salvager of Secrets, Scrivener can use Vitalize/Dramatic Reversal/etc.
Tidewater Minion needs haste or waiting a turn.

With Riptide Shapeshifter not only does it allow you to potentially sequence into another untapper, but it also allows you up upgrade, or even downgrade your creature. Exactly the sort of thing we are always looking to do with Prime Speaker Vannifar in the first place.

For 2UU you can choose Praetor and chain straight into Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur!!
Choose Eldrazi and get yourself an Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre or maybe Golem and get Blightsteel Colossus.
There are certainly a range of creatures you can select from and guarantee it's success.

The magic of it all is that Prime Speaker Vannifar of course can chain into them from any converted mana cost.
Quirion Ranger -> Scryb Ranger -> Bounding Krasis -> Breaching Hippocamp -> Riptide Shapeshifter.

OK, so what can it do for your deck?
Well this is where you've got really break down your creatures, and exactly what choosing a creature type will do for you.

So for example let's look at the primer deck. We will break down the creatures into types.

Bird; Birds of Paradise.
Elf; Quirion Ranger, Fyndhorn Elves.
Elf, Druid; Arbor Elf, Elvish Mystic, Llanowar Elves, Joraga Treespeaker, Devoted Druid, Priest of Titania.
Faerie; Scryb Ranger.
Merfolk; Kiora's Follower.
Satyr; Voyaging Satyr.
Human, Wizard; Spellseeker, Trinket Mage, Trophy Mage, Archaeomancer.
Lizard; Bounding Krasis.
Shaman; Eternal Witness, Elvish Piper.
Scout; Selvala, Heart of the Wilds.
Horse; Breaching Hippocamp.
Zombie; Fatestitcher.
Wall; Mnemonic Wall.
Hound; Chakram Retriever.
Shapeshifter; Body Double.
Drake; Peregrine Drake.
Spirit; Deadeye Navigator.
Beast; Woodland Bellower, Protean Hulk.
Elemental; Greenwarden of Murasa, Chakram Retriever.
Illusion; Palinchron.
Djinn; Tidespout Tyrant.

There are quite a few unique creatures types. I can guarantee upgrading into Deadeye Navigator, Palinchron, Tidespout Tyrant.
Choosing 'Beast' can get Woodland Bellower or Protean Hulk. If I wanted Protean Hulk as the final creature, then Woodland Bellower can get Bounding Krasis/Quirion Ranger/Scryb Ranger as a way to untap Vannifar to chain into it.
It would be fairly simple to take out Chakram Retriever for guaranteeing Greenwarden of Murasa for the 'Elemental' type.

The only Eight Drop creature in all of Simic that offers chaining up is Patron of the Orochi and this requires haste if wanting to use straight away.
There are no Nine or more converted mana cost creatures that actually are able to untap Vannifar in Simic. So chaining creatures past Eight or more, is dependent on additional untappers you might have access to or it can't be done.
With Riptide Shapeshifter you can plan for this much higher chaining now.

An example of how I might use Riptide Shapeshifter in my deck, is to chain into Palinchron with either Wirewood Lodge or Minamo, School at Water's Edge in play.
I could chain into Palinchron untapping all the lands, and then untap Vannifar with one of the lands.
With another creature in play can look to chain into Deadeye Navigator.

In conclusion
I implore you to see how Riptide Shapeshifter can fit into your Prime Speaker Vannifar build.
It's a real way of chaining and a solution to the often awkward Five Drop creature 'untapping' slot.

If you're playing more of a control build, then you can easily chain into creatures like Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger, Nullstone Gargoyle, Void Winnower, Kozilek, the Great Distortion.

Or you might just find yourself happy with putting pressure on your opponents to having answers for creatures like Blightsteel Colossus, Inkwell Leviathan, It That Betrays, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, Worldspine Wurm.

Momir Vig, Simic Visionary / Vizier of the Menagerie

Momir Vig, Simic Visionary

Vizier of the Menagerie

When I start these card discussions I never actually know what the outcomes are, I do them for my own personal thought experiments so that I further my understanding of how they could be worked into a Prime Speaker Vannifar build.

The reason I started looking at Momir Vig, Simic Visionary in the first place was to think about a backup plan in the face of some card hate like Grafdigger's Cage, Containment Priest, Cursed Totem, Linvala, Keeper of Silence.

Obviously you can't search for Momir Vig with Prime Speaker Vannifar if these hate cards are in play, but what if I had Momir Vig as a card I could draw to circumnavigate these types of cards?

One thing that I've been thinking about is how to potentially have a build that utilized Momir Vig, Simic Visionary and Vizier of the Menagerie as a way to combo.
It is possible to cast Momir Vig, Simic Visionary and cast a green creature spell and tutor for Vizier of the Menagerie to put it on top of your library and draw it next turn.

As a bonus you could also look to get them into play off Prime Speaker Vannifar, but this is no easy feat in itself.
If you were to use a Protean Hulk line then you could go for Momir Vig, Simic Visionary and Quirion Ranger and sequence the Quirion Ranger into Vizier of the Menagerie.
-OR-
You could look to use a natural untapper with two creatures in play if this was available to you.
For example;
1.) Two Drop creature -> Bounding Krasis -> Breaching Hippocamp -> Momir Vig, Simic Visionary.
2.) Use an untapper for Prime Speaker Vannifar, that you might already have like Wirewood Lodge, Wirewood Symbiote, Kiora's Follower, etc
3.) Two Drop creature -> Deceiver Exarch -> Vizier of the Menagerie.

How do we win from here?
Let's say we get both Momir Vig, Simic Visionary and Vizier of the Menagerie into play.

The below interactions are taken from a Momir Vig primer https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/primer-momir-vig-hackball/
All credit goes to AverageDragon and Sickrobot for the interactions.

The basic plan to tutor up Heritage Druid and Nettle Sentinel, which means that for every two 1cmc Green Creature Elves we cast, we net a G. As this gets more mana than you spend, it means we can chain tutors to generate more and more mana, and eventually assemble a combo. This is called a "tutor chain" or a "dork chain". Notably, it's hard to disrupt, because we get the tutors whether or not our creature resolves. Assuming you have a creature that taps for mana or a land drop, as well as a Forest, the combo needs only G to combo off post-tutor:

1. Tutor and play Quirion Ranger for G, and tutor up Heritage Druid, and either untap your dork or return a Forest and replay it, so that you go net-even on mana.
2. Play Heritage Druid for G, and tutor Nettle Sentinel, then tap Quirion Ranger, Heritage Druid, and Momir Vig for GGG.
3. Play Nettle Sentinel for G, and tutor any 1cmc Green elf, and begin dork chains to assemble the Mana Loop.

If you have two elves that you haven't tapped yet, you can also go directly into Heritage Druid for only G, in a line such as:

1. Tutor and play Heritage Druid for G, and tutor up Nettle Sentinel, then tap Heritage Druid and your two elves for GGG.
2. Play Nettle Sentinel for G, and tutor any 1cmc Green elf, and begin dork chains to assemble the Mana Loop.

Finally, if you don't have a creature which taps for mana, or a land drop, or two elves, you can go into the generic line:

1. Tutor and play Heritage Druid for G, and tutor up Nettle Sentinel.
2. Play Nettle Sentinel for G, and tutor any 1cmc Green elf, tap Nettle Sentinel, Heritage Druid, and Momir Vig for GGG, then begin dork chains to generate mana and assemble the Mana Loop.

Tutor chaining is a powerful tool that allows us to generate mana and gives us the ability to adapt extremely well to hostile board states. In general, after starting the tutor chain, you should fetch Birchlore Rangers to get access to blue mana (you may also use Quirion Ranger to bounce and replay a blue dual to achieve the same), then use it to cast Phantasmal Image as a copy of Nettle Sentinel. With two "copies" of Nettle Sentinel, every green creature will make GGG, which makes it much easier to assemble the Infinite Mana Loop.

To summarise all this, if we add the following creatures we can generate lots of mana.
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Vizier of the Menagerie
Heritage Druid
Nettle Sentinel
Birchlore Rangers
Phantasmal Image

Then there are a number of ways to branch off to use that mana.

You could go for Temur Sabertooth + Wirewood Symbiote for infinite mana;

1. Activate Temur Sabertooth for -1G and return Wirewood Symbiote to hand.
2. Replay Wirewood Symbiote for -G and untap Nettle Sentinel and Phantasmal Image.
3. Bounce your 1 mana dork to untap an elf, then tap Phantasmal Image, Nettle Sentinel, and the untapped elf to Heritage Druid for +GGG.
4. Replay the dork for -G and untap Nettle Sentinel and Phantasmal Image.
5. Tap the 1 mana dork, Nettle Sentinel, and Phantasmal Image to Heritage Druid for +GGG.

This loop generates GGGGGGG for every 1GGGG you spend, which allows you to go infinite. Afterwards, you can generate infinite U by using Birchlore Rangers and Temur Sabertooth. This means that you have infinite mana of any color, as well as infinite tutors thanks to Temur Sabertooth.

But alternatively because you are more into an elf tribal deck, you can potentially not go for any infinite's and simply get all your green creatures out onto the board.
You can always finish up with at least one blue creature as well, but this won't allow you to search for another creature, as Momir Vig only allows searching when it's "green".
But for example you could get all your green creatures out making sure to get Craterhoof Behemoth, then on your last search get Treasure Mage to get Akroma's Memorial, which will be more than lethal damage for all opponents.

Let's just do a little math check. Remember that each of our 1 mana creatures produces GG (net). If our deck had this type of creature base with mana creatures;

• Sylvan Safekeeper
  
• Birds of Paradise
  
• Arbor Elf
  
• Boreal Druid
  
• Elvish Mystic
  
• Fyndhorn Elves
  
• Llanowar Elves
  
• Joraga Treespeaker
  
• Kiora's Follower
  
• Devoted Druid
  
• Priest of Titania

Then that's 19 mana. Which is enough to cast Craterhoof Behemoth + Treasure Mage + Akroma's Memorial at 18 mana.

That is also going to be at a minimum of 19 creatures as well (remember we also have the combo assemblers in play, Momir Vig, Simic Visionary , Vizier of the Menagerie, Heritage Druid, Nettle Sentinel, Birchlore Rangers, Phantasmal Image) so that's +19/+19 to 19 creatures, it's going to be around 380 plus damage.

As an alternative to Craterhoof Behemoth, you could run Ezuri, Renegade Leader instead.
I calculate that you'd need to run one more elf (for example Bloom Tender), so your 13 elves will be able to get +10/+10 off two Ezuri, Renegade Leader activation's. That's about 140 plus damage.

In conclusion
There will be hundreds of ways to combo with Momir Vig, Simic Visionary and Vizier of the Menagerie in play, but I think that it best suites a build that has a lot of mana creatures already and you're willing to play some of the "elves matter" cards in Heritage Druid, Nettle Sentinel, Birchlore Rangers.
These can strengthen the speed of your deck for the right build, very explosive starts, and ups your creature count potentially in a positive way.

Then you can take out/don't run a lot of other creature combos that you might have been thinking about.
For example in my primer decks they have Peregrine Drake + Deadeye Navigator but instead you can run Temur Sabertooth + Wirewood Symbiote as a source of infinite mana.

Then you really have a powerful creature in your 99 with Momir Vig that can act as an alternative to Prime Speaker Vannifar if she has been hated out of the game.
Plus Vizier of the Menagerie is a great card on it's own, Prime Speaker Vannifar ability does allow you to shuffle your library for additional looks at the top of your deck.

Why not just play Momir Vig, Simic Visionary as your commander if you want to run these combos? Well I've actually written a section within the primer on reasons why you might want to play Prime Speaker Vannifar as your commander even when you are looking to use other legendary creatures as key cards. For more details click here to read up on it.
But in general you're still looking to combo in other ways, and for a relatively small combo package it provides methods of playing around being hated out by cards that specifically shut downs Prime Speaker Vannifar abilities.
It still won't save you from Aven Mindcensor or Stranglehold, but you can probably get around almost all the other cards that shut down Prime Speaker Vannifar activation's.

Neoform

Is a new card from War of the Spark (even at uncommon). Similar to Eldritch Evolution, but with some important differences. You have to select a creature exactly 1 converted mana cost more, where Eldritch Evolution you can go for converted mana costs at 2 higher or same or lesser. Not a huge deal, often you'd be looking to always get to the maximum converted mana cost out of the cards, but there might be situations where you want to convert a creature into removal that would require you to get a lower or same casting cost creature for example.

But the main difference is that Neoform doesn't get exiled. This card is perfect for the deck as it's another backup way to win without Prime Speaker Vannifar in play.

1.) Cast Spellseeker for 2U getting Neoform.
2.) Cast Neoform for GU, sacrificing Spellseeker getting Archaeomancer to return Neoform.
3.) Cast Neoform for GU, sacrificing Archaeomancer getting Mnemonic Wall to return Neoform.
4.) Cast Neoform for GU, sacrificing Mnemonic Wall getting Greenwarden of Murasa to return Neoform.
5.) Cast Neoform for GU, sacrificing Greenwarden of Murasa getting Protean Hulk.
6.) Exile Greenwarden of Murasa to return Archaeomancer.
7.) Cast Archaeomancer for 2UU to return Neoform.
8.) Cast Neoform for GU, sacrificing Protean Hulk into ..

In conclusion
You have to cast Neoform five times and cast Archaeomancer, so realistically going to need to be spread out over probably a couple of turns. But in games where Vannifar has been shut out, it's a very good game plan.

"When the Prime Speaker goes too far, I will be here in the safety of the deeps to correct her."
—Zegana

Hypothetical Turn 1 or Turn 2 wins with Haste

I've already seen a video posted of a hypothetical turn one win. But it involves some very specific cards in your opening hand.
Now this is all well and cool for style points, but you don't want to be basing your deck around needing specific cards too much. Having the exact combination of cards in your hand to get a Turn 1 or 2 win, really needs to be balanced up with how good those cards are at other times.

I still think the best line is NOT needing haste for creatures is the way to go. As you can see there really are not that many ways of giving your creatures haste in Simic, so best to avoid completely relying on it.

More specifically if you do have the ability to get haste then can you win on the turn you cast Prime Speaker Vannifar?

I found this on Reddit:

Now the method of winning isn't so important or actually winning on Turn 1 or even 2, it just asks the question -
"Can you win with Prime Speaker Vannifar on the turn you play her with either Concordant Crossroads, Swiftfoot Boots or Thousand-Year Elixir in play, also assuming that you have no mana available?"

What would a sequence like this look like for the current deck configuration? Well it's basically the same as Trophy Mage into Thousand-Year Elixir but because you already have haste you can just replace the Trophy Mage with ..

1.) Cast Concordant Crossroads or Swiftfoot Boots or Thousand-Year Elixir on previous or same turn as combo. Or play Hall of the Bandit Lord previous turn as combo.
2.) Cast Prime Speaker Vannifar and you'll have the ability to use her immediately.
For example:
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice One Drop creature into -> Kiora's Follower to untap Vannifar.
4.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Kiora's Follower into -> Bounding Krasis to untap Vannifar.
5.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Bounding Krasis into -> Fatestitcher (with haste now) to untap Vannifar.
6.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Peregrine Drake to untap your lands.
7.) Unearth Fatestitcher for U to untap Vannifar.
8.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Peregrine Drake into -> Deadeye Navigator soulbond to Fatestitcher.
9.) Exile Fatestitcher for 1U to untap Vannifar.
10.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Body Double copying Peregrine Drake.
11.) Soulbond Body Double as Peregrine Drake to Deadeye Navigator and get infinite mana.
12.) Soulbond Deadeye Navigator to Prime Speaker Vannifar.
..it's arbitrary at this point, you can draw and cast your entire deck.

So the answer is yes you can do it. However the combo is reliant on having 3 lands in play. This cannot ever be a Turn 1 or Turn 2 win. You basically trade in quality of cards for less potential speed.

But setting up the deck to also be able to chain into Protean Hulk from zero costing creatures is a different story when you can't use Peregrine Drake and Deadeye Navigator to combo.

So you can look to use the Vitalize line into Protean Hulk instead. You will need a mana creature on the board to keep paying for the Vitalize however if comboing early.

1.) Cast Concordant Crossroads or Swiftfoot Boots or Thousand-Year Elixir previous or same turn as combo.
2.) Cast Prime Speaker Vannifar and you'll have the ability to use her immediately.
For example:
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice One Drop creature into -> Kiora's Follower to untap Vannifar.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Kiora's Follower into -> Spellseeker getting Vitalize.
4.) Cast Vitalize for G to untap Vannifar and mana creature.
5.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice into -> Breaching Hippocamp to untap Vannifar.
6.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Breaching Hippocamp into -> Mnemonic Wall returning Vitalize.
7.) Cast Vitalize for G to untap Vannifar and mana creature.
8.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Mnemonic Wall into -> Greenwarden of Murasa returning Vitalize.
9.) Cast Vitalize for G to untap Vannifar and mana creature.
10.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Greenwarden of Murasa into -> Protean Hulk.
11.) Exile Greenwarden of Murasa from your graveyard to return Vitalize.
12.) Cast Vitalize for G to untap Vannifar and mana creature.
13.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Protean Hulk into -> .. {whatever method you choose}.

With this line you can combo without needing the lands, but requires a mana creature, along with another creature to start the chain sacrifice.

So what if you wanted to play a Turn 1 or Turn 2 deck, that didn't just rely on Flash + Protean Hulk?

First of all if it's Turn 1 then your ability to use Quirion Ranger and Scryb Ranger will be impossible in the same turn. With this in mind you'd need to play another enabler.

To combo off you're going to need 2UG + G + U in order for this to work.

So there are a various combinations of cards in the deck that can get you this, but I'll give you one example;
Lion's Eye Diamond + Mana Crypt + Lotus Petal + Forest*.
*Forest, meaning any land with Forest type, could be basic or non-basic, or achieved through a fetch land, etc.

Turn 1 Win
1.) Play into a Forest*
2.) Cast Memnite.
3.) Tap Forest to cast Concordant Crossroads.
4.) Cast and sacrifice Lotus Petal for U.
5.) Cast Mana Crypt and tap for 2.
6.) Cast and sacrifice Lion's Eye Diamond for GGG.
7.) Cast Prime Speaker Vannifar for 2UG.
8.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Memnite into -> Copperhorn Scout.
9.) Attack with Copperhorn Scout to untap Vannifar.
10.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Copperhorn Scout into -> Scryb Ranger. Return Forest* to untap Vannifar.
..sequence carries on further down
-OR-
Turn 2 Win
Turn 1:
1.) Play into a Forest* and cast a One Drop mana creature.
Turn 2:
1.) Tap Forest* for G.
2.) Tap One Drop mana creature for G.
3.) Cast Mana Crypt and tap for 2.
4.) Cast Concordant Crossroads for G.
5.) Cast Prime Speaker Vannifar for 2UG.
6.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice One Drop creature into -> Scryb Ranger. Return Forest* to untap Vannifar.
7.) Cast Mox Diamond and tap for G.
..sequence carries on further down

Before we go further you can see that with the deck configuration of having at least 6 one drop mana creatures, you're far more likely to be better off not playing zero costing creatures, like Memnite, Ornithopter, etc, just for the sake of winning on Turn 1..in my humble opinion
But it's also not impossible to get a Turn 1 win with casting a One Drop creature + Concordant Crossroads + Prime Speaker Vannifar.
Your starting hand would have to be something like this; Lion's Eye Diamond + Mana Crypt + Lotus Petal + Elvish Spirit Guide + Forest + One Drop creature + Concordant Crossroads.

Also note that Swiftfoot Boots or Thousand-Year Elixir could be played instead of Concordant Crossroads if you have the means to cast it along with Prime Speaker Vannifar.
Swiftfoot Boots is probably easier to combo with, as it's easy to get colorless mana during the first couple of turns. A first turn Mana Crypt + Swiftfoot Boots and One Drop creature will set you up for a Turn 2 win.

..carried on from the Turn 1 and Turn 2 sequences, which you'll have G floating.
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Scryb Ranger into -> Spellseeker getting Vitalize.
2.) Cast Vitalize for G to untap Vannifar.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Spellseeker into -> Fatestitcher.
4.) Untap a U source with Fatestitcher.
5.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Mnemonic Wall returning Vitalize.
6.) Unearth Fatestitcher for U.
7.) Untap a G source with Fatestitcher.
8.) Cast Vitalize for G to untap Vannifar and Fatestitcher.
9.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Mnemonic Wall into -> Woodland Bellower;
10.) Woodland Bellower gets Bounding Krasis to untap Vannifar.
11.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Woodland Bellower into -> Protean Hulk.
12.) Untap Vannifar with Fatestitcher.
13.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Protean Hulk into .. {whatever line best suites}.

In conclusion
If you wanted the deck to have a potential Turn 1 that didn't just rely on Flash + Protean Hulk win then you'd need to add Copperhorn Scout and a bunch of Zero costing creatures (i.e. Memnite, Ornithopter, etc).

Theoretically you can win on Turn 2 without needing to add anything else to the deck.

Both of these require winning by sequencing into Protean Hulk and having a method of winning immediately after sacrificing it.

Play any non-legendary Simic creature as your "commander" with Prime Speaker Vannifar

Prime Speaker Vannifar has this ornate ability to search for any creature in your deck, and be able to chain into it from any converted mana cost creature if you structure the deck a certain way.
So although she cost four mana, you can easily use her to play out much higher costing creatures, and indeed she gives you access to non-legendary creatures and legendary creatures in an extremely efficient manner.

If you've had your eye on a particular creature in Simic that you've wanted to build around, but because they were non-legendary couldn't focus on it too much, well now you can.

Momir Vig, Simic Visionary has been the closest to being able to do this sort of thing for you in the past. But the difference between needing to cast it or just putting into play is where the real difference is. Momir also requires multi colored creatures least you need a way to draw the creatures as well. Too slow is the answer to really have used him truly effectively in a manner where you can fully concentrate on a particular creature in your deck as the central part of your strategy.

The other reason that Prime Speaker Vannifar will be so effective at this sort of thing is that you have access to a ton of graveyard retrieval cards, as well as even exile retrieval with Riftsweeper.
Eternal Witness, Skullwinder, Greenwarden of Murasa, are creatures that can get any card back.
Sylvan Hierophant, Moldgraf Monstrosity, Genesis, Grave Sifter, can also get creatures back.
You can use Spellseeker to get cards like Regrowth and Nostalgic Dreams to name some, to get back cards from graveyard as well.
Loaming Shaman, Barishi, Rooting Kavu, Elvish Soultiller, will allow you to shuffle creatures back into your library making it easy to search for them again.

So in this respect, if you wanted to focus on a particular creature or even set of creatures for your deck, Prime Speaker Vannifar can truly act as a proxy for builds that you've imagined or now yet to imagine.

A list of unique creatures that are in my collection, that I think would be fun and powerful to build around, treating them as sort of pseudo "commanders";
Thing in the Ice, Hermit Druid, Arcane Artisan, Sage of Fables, Synod Artificer, Grand Architect, Jace's Archivist, Sigil Tracer, Cold-Eyed Selkie, Faerie Artisans, Beast Whisperer, Temur Sabertooth, Elite Arcanist, Beguiler of Wills, Djinn of Wishes, Mirror-Mad Phantasm, Quicksilver Elemental, Willbreaker, Tendershoot Dryad, Sages of the Anima, Omnispell Adept, Consecrated Sphinx, Guile, Roil Elemental, Rampaging Baloths, Realm Seekers, Nacatl War-Pride, Vigor, Scourge of Fleets, Regal Force.

Now some of you will still be confused at what I'm trying to portray. I don't just mean you have a better chance at said creatures because they are good in your deck, I mean you can really build around a particular creature(s).

So for example, Willbreaker has a very specific ability. You can design much of your deck to her ability using Prime Speaker Vannifar to get you access to her, and giving you resiliency with tools to get it back in the face of removal.
There is a slew of cards that target that you can use to steal your opponents creatures. You'd probably play some sacrifice outlets like Phyrexian Altar to make sure opponents didn't get their creatures back. The options are bountiful.
You can double up on "untap" cards that you might use for Prime Speaker Vannifar to use on opponents creatures;
Aim High, Cerulean Wisps, Burst of Strength, Dream's Grip, etc
Aphetto Alchemist, Seeker of Skybreak, Kiora's Follower, Vizier of Tumbling Sands, etc

Maybe you really want to push Cold-Eyed Selkie as a key card in your deck. So making sure you have cards that give your opponents islands will be good. Then you're happy to play pump spells, as you get rewarded. A Giant Growth becomes an Ancestral Recall, just as Richard Garfield intended.












If you can see what I'm getting at, normally you can't put too many cards that would be focused on non-commander creatures, as you rely on drawing them in your 99, so is too inconsistent to be able to build around.
But now you have a way to follow your desires more on focused non-legendary creature builds.

Another example is more like a suite of creatures with "top of library" playing creatures;



Courser of Kruphix, Oracle of Mul Daya, Vizier of the Menagerie, Magus of the Future.
Certainly one of my favorite play styles. Other Simic commanders have helmed these for me in the past, like Thrasios, Triton Hero, Momir Vig, Simic Visionary being some of the last ones I used.
But Prime Speaker Vannifar can give you a new level of access to these creatures. You can really build around the top of your library, as you know you have a way to get any of these creatures, just like they were your commander.

Have you ever wanted to play Prophet of Kruphix as your commander? Oh come on now you know you would if you could.
Well obviously Prophet of Kruphix is banned, but with Prime Speaker Vannifar, you can look to play Seedborn Muse and Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir as pseudo partner commanders.



How the heck do we do this?
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice 0/1 token into -> Quirion Ranger. Return a Forest to untap Vannifar.
2.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Quirion Ranger into -> Scryb Ranger. Return a Forest to untap Vannifar.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Scryb Ranger into -> Trophy Mage getting Thousand-Year Elixir.
4.) Cast Thousand-Year Elixir for 3 and untap Vannifar with Thousand-Year Elixir for t1.
5.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Trophy Mage into -> Fatestitcher (with haste now) to untap Vannifar.
6.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir.
7.) Unearth Fatestitcher for U to untap Vannifar.
8.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Seedborn Muse.

Now we can also use Prime Speaker Vannifar to get back any of the card(s) in the face of removal.
You can sequence into Eternal Witness, etc. Or in this instance you might want to put all your creatures back into your library.
With Loaming Shaman can look to put them back into your library so that you can sequence back into them.

It's all going to come down to if you have other untappers for Prime Speaker Vannifar in order for getting them back straight away or needing to use a graveyard retrieval/shuffle back into library sequence first.

Now there are stipulations. How much converted mana cost the creature is matters. The higher the converted mana cost, the more cards you need in the deck to sequence up into.
Quirion Ranger, Scryb Ranger, Bounding Krasis, Fatestitcher, Tidewater Minion, Great Oak Guardian, Patron of the Orochi, are some examples at each converted mana cost.
You can see that there is no creature that can untap Vannifar at Seven converted mana cost. So although you can sequence into a Seven costing creature, without another way to untap Vannifar, you can't then go into an Eight Drop creature. The same with Nine all the way up. In this respect Seven Drop creatures are the limit if you didn't want to have to wait another turn without another untapper.



Let's say your deck is focused on Sages of the Anima turning Brainstorm into looking at the top 9 cards of your library. Each cantrip digging you super far into your deck.

Now you can use a super simply sequence like;
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Two Drop creature into -> Bounding Krasis to untap Vannifar.
2.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Bounding Krasis into -> Breaching Hippocamp to untap Vannifar.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Breaching Hippocamp into -> Sages of the Anima.

So what if Sages of the Anima is removed straight away, let's say with Swords to Plowshares?
We have to use Riftsweeper, so we need to specifically sacrifice One Drop to into it.

We also have to either have another set of creatures that we can sequence into Sages of the Anima again.
For example you might also play;
1.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Riftsweeper into -> Trophy Mage getting Thousand-Year Elixir.
2.) Cast Thousand-Year Elixir for 3 and untap Vannifar with Thousand-Year Elixir for t1.
3.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Trophy Mage into -> Fatestitcher (with haste now) to untap Vannifar.
4.) Tap Vannifar to sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Sages of the Anima.

But this means taking up more slots in your deck for redundancy.
So an alternative method is that you can use Loaming Shaman to shuffle your previous chaining creatures back into your library.
The disadvantage with this is that unless you have a way to untap Vannifar, you'll have to wait another turn to get Sages of the Anima back into play.

So the trade off is how many cards you slot in for Prime Speaker Vannifar redundancy versus waiting a turn.

If you are looking at a higher converted mana creature, for example Scourge of Fleets, then now you are looking at quite a few creatures to chain up into it. Building redundancy just to chain into it, starts becoming a lot of slots, that otherwise you might want to dedicate to the theme of your deck.
So in this respect, I feel like the higher the converted mana cost, the more likely it is you'll play Loaming Shaman as your means of recycling your chaining creatures.

If your focus creature dies, then it's easy enough to just get it back with say Sylvan Hierophant or Eternal Witness, to cast it from your hand. But in this respect maybe part of the appeal is that you don't normally have to cast it with Prime Speaker Vannifar powerful ability, so the preference is to shuffle your chaining sequences back into your library regardless.
It's going to come down to how much it costs to cast, versus maybe having to wait another turn(s) to get it back into play. The thing is that you can probably choose the preference depending on how the game is shaping up anyway.