The deck, while quick, is also incredibly fragile. You need some protection. Using all of your available slots for your combo is horribly inefficient and will get you killed against a highly disruptive opponent. Right now, I view this deck as something similar to SI. Your early game is great... unless you get disrupted. Then you pretty much fold.
A thousand times this. just put this list on cockatrice and play out some hands, the frequency that it stalls out due to low threat density is almost laughable. even in the sample hands in the primer, if in any of those games your opponent decided to counter imperial recruiter and that was the only spell they countered all game, that one counterspell would leave the deck dead in the water. I mean really, a blue deck with without counterspells in this format? What? ninety percent of the meta is made of blue decks with at least ten counterspells and this list has no interaction whatsoever.
Im not really one to rock the boat but I think a lot of what is in the primer is probably ficticious.
Nice thread! I've been waiting for something like this. Thanks for putting it together.
One nitpick though; Tiers are based on popularity iirc, not power, so putting Sisay under A Tier seems a little biased I only remember seeing her top 8 once in all those French Tournament results, unless these are based on a 'Trice meta as I don't play there. Also, has Evergreen's Iname list started seeing a lot of play online from anyone other than him? I've goldfished the deck a bit. Quite nasty.
Isn't 31 lands far too low? Is running a terribad card like Dryad Arbor just for the GSZ interaction worth it? Dryad Arbor isn't a spell, so when you play Dryad Arbor from your hand, it won't put a counter on Animar. It's just a CiPt forest that dies to sweepers.
Also, your deck seems to be very lacking in wincons if your recruiter gets countered, as casting the Eldrazi in a timely manner really only happens with a goldfish that can't interact. If you can't get the chain off I really don't see how your list gets consistent turn 3/4 wins as you are saying, as your other listed win conditions arn't tutorable at all aside from skull clamp but that's not actually a win condition. You would be much better off running Palinchron instead, because infinite mana and an infinite Animar in this deck really never fails to win upon resolution and it would cut several slots from your deck. It's also a great instant win to tutor for when you can't get recruiter which the Eldrazi are not. How your deck could possibly have the tempo to recover from your t2 Animar getting removed as I don't see you hitting five mana without casting a bunch of dorks which would accell you into an animar and an empty hand. Gush and Fathom Seer seem terrible in a 3 color deck trying to win on turn 3/4.
Just my 2 cents.
LATE EDIT: I just noticed that you have Primeval Titan listed twice....under lands. 0_0
Most Animar combo lists run AT LEAST forty creatures. There's just no way your going to be able to get enough counters on Animar with so few bodies in the list. I would start by dropping a lot of the instants and sorceries and add the default cantrip creatures such as Elvish Visionary, Wall of Blossoms and Mulldrifter as the mileage these guys add to the deck really is the bread and butter to any combo list. In addition, running as many ways to get Animar out on turn two as possible will always result in faster and more consistent wins.
Also, I've found Cursecatcher and co. to be quite potent.
Steelshaper's Gift is excellent. Evasive Action is so often Mana Leak in a 3 color deck that I now find it to be a staple. I love Venser, Shaper Savant in lists like this. I find Stifle to be far too narrow in this format. Merchant Scroll is pure gold.
I feel like you could drop a lot of the junk and add more card advantage. Namely: Parallax Wave Goldmeadow Harrier, Looter Ill Kor, Gideon's Lawkeeper, Miran Crusader, and Nin the Painartist. Control decks with sweepers don't need utility creatures. Your general is a three turn clock and you have plenty of planeswalkers and swords, there's no reason to run anything else.
I'm wondering what most people would consider to be the minimum amount of sorcery and instants required in your EDH deck in order for Snapcaster Mage to be consistently finding a target. In my Animar list, I run 17 one or two mana instants/sorceries that are all well worth recurring but I'm not too sure about how often he would be a dead draw.
Any experiences with snapcaster in EDH would be great to hear too.
How was Orcish Lumberjack been? I've always been intrigued by that card for Animar.
Are the spirit guides dead draws a lot, or are they totally worth the explosiveness of a turn one animar? And lotus petal? I feel like the red one wouldn't help you cast very much if you already have a few counters on Animar because of the low amount of red mana symbols in the deck.
How easy is it to flip Erayo in the deck?
As far as additions to your deck; Sakashima the Impostor seems much better than clone because it goes infinite with peregrine drake and cradle while you can also clone Animar with it! Gamble is an incredible card when Aluren wins you the game on the spot, and even when you pitch it you have a better chance of pulling it out of the graveyard than actually drawing it. Azusa seems lackluster here with such a low land count. I also really like Birthing Pod and Glen Elendra Archmage here too.
So why not run Guided Passage along side those cards? Will you really be that sad to get 2 meh cards out of your deck plus a Time Warp or Mana Drain off of Guided Passage? You're seriously advocating the use of Dizzy Spell over Guided passage, when both could essentially do the same thing, especially when their only choices to give you are either those nice spells like Glimpse or Tutors? What's stopping you from running Guided Passage and something like Intuition? Are you really so put off by having a card that could potentially be a better Merchant's Scroll in your deck?
Nothings stopping you from running Intuition, Time Warp, Green Sun's Zenith, and so forth along side Guided Passage. I'm pretty sure I'm perfectly happy if someone gave me a Green Sun's Zenith off of Guided Passage. Besides, you're running Animar, you want to be creature heavy, and your tutors can easily be things like Chord of Calling, Intuition, GSZ, Survival, Tooth and Nail, and Defense of the Heart. You're not really in any serious need to run something like Mystical Tutor...
So tell me, if you played a card, got a basic land, a mana dork, and any of those above tutors in your hand from it, would you really be all that sad about it? Oh woe is me, I just transmuted my Dizzy Spell for that tutor and 2 random cards that might be great utility cards because the other players need me to stop the big threat player of the moment.
Edit: There are also situational counter creatures like Plaxmanta, but generally you only need one or two counters a game to protect your combo.
Never ever ever ever in a million years will this card get you a time warp or a mana drain. ever. period. fact. If your not running any worse non-creature, non land cards than that, your deck is terrible. And it's a blue deck with no other counterspells, so an autowin. I'm sorry but you can't play 'only tutors and glimpse of nature.dec' with some creatures' and expect do to anything with it. Not to mention that you will never find yourself in a situation where it would be profitable to tutor for a guided passage so warping your entire deck to suck just for a better outcome (which wont win you the game) when your draw your 1/99 sounds like really bad magic.
As far as mentioning which creatures would be really good to grab with a guided passage, if you have a creature they need to kill, they will never give you a plaxmanta. If theres a spell they need to resolve, they will never give you venser. In addition to his, because you play Sakura Tribe Elder or Llanowar elves, and if you don't, then you play Chrome Mox and Three Visit's so you'll never get the glimpse of nature. If you STILL don't have those then your deck has no ramp and clearly not competative. That's the entire point and flavor of the card.
What would you recommend for hand control / "light rock defenses" (not sure what you mean by this)?
When he says 'rock', he is talking about a specific archtype that consists of hand disruption, some aggro, and good removal. I'm not sure exactly about what defines rock but that's pretty much the jist of it.
What would you recommend for hand control / "light rock defenses" (not sure what you mean by this)?
QUOTE]
When he says 'rock', he is talking about a specific archtype that consists of hand disruption, some aggro, and good removal. I'm not sure exactly about what defines rock but that's pretty much the jist of it.
Hand disruption:
Inquisition to Kozilek
ThoughtseizeHymm to Tourach
Mind Shatter
Distress
Addle
Persecute
All of these cards are great because other than counterspells, they're the only way to selectively stop your opponent from resolving spells. That's pretty nuts if you think about it. I'd say you want as many of these as you can shove in here really. Voltron is pretty hard to stop if you hit their spot removal.
I've heard so much about this deck on these forums that I had to check it out.
I know this is an old thread and seems to be in dire need of an updating, but looking through this list I have absolutely no idea how this deck pulls off the turn 5-6 combo's that have been mentioned in the thread or what the combo's even are for that matter. Can anyone explain how this deck actually wins?
Why Sylvan Tutor over Wordly Tutor? I think there should be room for both Survival and Worldly Tutor.
As far as the list goes I think this is a really good start to where this deck needs to go in regards to abusing Dream Halls, but I think your list needs an additional way to win besides grinding your opponents out endlessly. Tooth and nail with eternal witness, palinchron, oona, and pyrexian metamorph, and Vorinclex makes Tooth and Nail an instant win with creatures you would be running anyways. Adding these creatures would also help with Survival.
Actually, Shrieking Drake and Dream Stalker are by far the fastest way to get counters on Animar. I dont play the bouncers because I run Aluren, I run Aluren because I run the bouncers.
A thousand times this. just put this list on cockatrice and play out some hands, the frequency that it stalls out due to low threat density is almost laughable. even in the sample hands in the primer, if in any of those games your opponent decided to counter imperial recruiter and that was the only spell they countered all game, that one counterspell would leave the deck dead in the water. I mean really, a blue deck with without counterspells in this format? What? ninety percent of the meta is made of blue decks with at least ten counterspells and this list has no interaction whatsoever.
Im not really one to rock the boat but I think a lot of what is in the primer is probably ficticious.
One nitpick though; Tiers are based on popularity iirc, not power, so putting Sisay under A Tier seems a little biased
Isn't 31 lands far too low? Is running a terribad card like Dryad Arbor just for the GSZ interaction worth it? Dryad Arbor isn't a spell, so when you play Dryad Arbor from your hand, it won't put a counter on Animar. It's just a CiPt forest that dies to sweepers.
Also, your deck seems to be very lacking in wincons if your recruiter gets countered, as casting the Eldrazi in a timely manner really only happens with a goldfish that can't interact. If you can't get the chain off I really don't see how your list gets consistent turn 3/4 wins as you are saying, as your other listed win conditions arn't tutorable at all aside from skull clamp but that's not actually a win condition. You would be much better off running Palinchron instead, because infinite mana and an infinite Animar in this deck really never fails to win upon resolution and it would cut several slots from your deck. It's also a great instant win to tutor for when you can't get recruiter which the Eldrazi are not. How your deck could possibly have the tempo to recover from your t2 Animar getting removed as I don't see you hitting five mana without casting a bunch of dorks which would accell you into an animar and an empty hand. Gush and Fathom Seer seem terrible in a 3 color deck trying to win on turn 3/4.
Just my 2 cents.
LATE EDIT: I just noticed that you have Primeval Titan listed twice....under lands. 0_0
Also, I've found Cursecatcher and co. to be quite potent.
I feel like you could drop a lot of the junk and add more card advantage. Namely: Parallax Wave Goldmeadow Harrier, Looter Ill Kor, Gideon's Lawkeeper, Miran Crusader, and Nin the Painartist. Control decks with sweepers don't need utility creatures. Your general is a three turn clock and you have plenty of planeswalkers and swords, there's no reason to run anything else.
Card Advantage: Cerebral Vortex, Impulse, Ponder, Compulsive Research, and every blue deck in the format needs Fact or Fiction.
Dope list though. RWU is at a perfect spot in the meta.
Any experiences with snapcaster in EDH would be great to hear too.
Are the spirit guides dead draws a lot, or are they totally worth the explosiveness of a turn one animar? And lotus petal? I feel like the red one wouldn't help you cast very much if you already have a few counters on Animar because of the low amount of red mana symbols in the deck.
How easy is it to flip Erayo in the deck?
As far as additions to your deck; Sakashima the Impostor seems much better than clone because it goes infinite with peregrine drake and cradle while you can also clone Animar with it! Gamble is an incredible card when Aluren wins you the game on the spot, and even when you pitch it you have a better chance of pulling it out of the graveyard than actually drawing it. Azusa seems lackluster here with such a low land count. I also really like Birthing Pod and Glen Elendra Archmage here too.
Never ever ever ever in a million years will this card get you a time warp or a mana drain. ever. period. fact. If your not running any worse non-creature, non land cards than that, your deck is terrible. And it's a blue deck with no other counterspells, so an autowin. I'm sorry but you can't play 'only tutors and glimpse of nature.dec' with some creatures' and expect do to anything with it. Not to mention that you will never find yourself in a situation where it would be profitable to tutor for a guided passage so warping your entire deck to suck just for a better outcome (which wont win you the game) when your draw your 1/99 sounds like really bad magic.
As far as mentioning which creatures would be really good to grab with a guided passage, if you have a creature they need to kill, they will never give you a plaxmanta. If theres a spell they need to resolve, they will never give you venser. In addition to his, because you play Sakura Tribe Elder or Llanowar elves, and if you don't, then you play Chrome Mox and Three Visit's so you'll never get the glimpse of nature. If you STILL don't have those then your deck has no ramp and clearly not competative. That's the entire point and flavor of the card.
When he says 'rock', he is talking about a specific archtype that consists of hand disruption, some aggro, and good removal. I'm not sure exactly about what defines rock but that's pretty much the jist of it.
Hand disruption:
The next best thing would be mind rot I think, and that doesn't quite cut it.
What would you recommend for hand control / "light rock defenses" (not sure what you mean by this)?
QUOTE]
When he says 'rock', he is talking about a specific archtype that consists of hand disruption, some aggro, and good removal. I'm not sure exactly about what defines rock but that's pretty much the jist of it.
Hand disruption:
Inquisition to Kozilek
ThoughtseizeHymm to Tourach
Mind Shatter
Distress
Addle
Persecute
All of these cards are great because other than counterspells, they're the only way to selectively stop your opponent from resolving spells. That's pretty nuts if you think about it. I'd say you want as many of these as you can shove in here really. Voltron is pretty hard to stop if you hit their spot removal.
I know this is an old thread and seems to be in dire need of an updating, but looking through this list I have absolutely no idea how this deck pulls off the turn 5-6 combo's that have been mentioned in the thread or what the combo's even are for that matter. Can anyone explain how this deck actually wins?
As far as the list goes I think this is a really good start to where this deck needs to go in regards to abusing Dream Halls, but I think your list needs an additional way to win besides grinding your opponents out endlessly. Tooth and nail with eternal witness, palinchron, oona, and pyrexian metamorph, and Vorinclex makes Tooth and Nail an instant win with creatures you would be running anyways. Adding these creatures would also help with Survival.