Armorcraft doesn't work bc for most of the game you have between 0-1 creatures with counters on them, making him a pretty bad Elvish Visionary effect. When he was spoiled i first read the effect as "for each +1/+1 counter on a creature you control" and was super excited, but sadly it'd not worth the slot.

Emissary is def the next best effect for the deck. Its 3 CMC and gives you some selection like Raven/Oracle, but youcan whiff, which I don't like. if you flip 4 cards in a deck with 5o cards, you'll see about 2 valid targets per flip, and get the better of the two. More importantly, the upside is a minor improvement over this, but the worst case makes Emissary a total waste. the ceiling is low but the floor is really low. That's not what i want in a card i'm playing for the sake of consistency. By contrast, Raven and Oracle will always give you the best card you see, so these effects do a lot more to "smooth" your draws.

Drowner is a fun card for sure. But it costs 4 and a sac on ETB. I'd rather play Riverwise Augur for the same CMC or even Champ of Wits if I really want to dive into the pool of less-effective blue cantrip creatures.

I've often considered shaving 2-3 pieces of interaction and just going full-blast on mediocre cantrips/selection (omenspeaker, champ, emissary, augur, etc) but it usually only takes a few tough, interactive, grindy comp EDH games to convince me not to do that. Basically, the best 2-3 interactive cards are a lot better for the deck than the worst 2-3 card draw/selection cards, so until we get more decent cantrips, i think we have to accept the deck at its current speed and bolster its toolbox capabilities, even if it means were not "the beatdown" in ever matchup. sometimes newer pilots miss this points, and it's why i often recommend tutoring an early glen instead of a combo piece if youre going to have to be the one to stop Hulk or Naus from firing off.

I play with more stax/control then combo, so I may have a scewed veiw on this, but I only mentioned cards you sounded like you wanted, not ones I specifically thought were strictly better than ones in the deck.

To be entirely honest, If they do print a few more cards like Mulldrifter, Bond Beetle, and Birds of Paradise. You know, like 2-3 of each, then this deck could be a sweet storm build, going off faster than many Grixis Storm lists.

Here's another discussion question or everyone. Lately I've been revisiting the available cards that can make our creatures uncounterable. There are a few good ones (sorry, savage summoning) and I've been considering playing one in Phyrexian Metamorph's slot.

First, it's important to note that a lot of the best counters in cEDH can't hit creatures. this is the reason i rarely play anti-counter tech in the deck; frankly its somewhere between overkill and actively damaging, especially when we need an important noncreature to go though and it ends up eating 2-3 pent-up counters that weren't able to be used earlier. Nevertheless, I think a few of the following cards may have merit for us:

Cavern of Souls: almost exclusively used cast Animar early on, so it's not quite the same as the rest of these options, but its worth mentioning since free is always my favorite cost. I could add Crop Rotation to the deck to get access to Cav and Cradle more frequently, but neither is so essential to the deck that i'd want to play such a narrow tutor.

Dosan the Falling Leaf: basically a City of Solitude that works better with our tutors. My issue when testing this guy in the past was that he prevented the rest of the table from stopping other decks from winning on their turns. very risky.

Gaea's Herald: another universal effect, this time much more favorable to us. Very easy to cast and tutor as well. But i hate the idea of protecting opponent's casts.

Prowling Serpopard: in most ways, the upgraded Herald. Uncounterable itself and one-sided. The cost is annoying but not too onerous. my main issue is that by covering our creatures, he puts our non-creature casts at real risk of eating those pent-up counters. in my testing, this wwould sometimes get something as minor as a Gamble countered just bc the counters were feeling like dead weight. obviously this is mitigated in a big game with lots of active opponents, but I ended up rejecting this guy bc he was more often than not some combination of useless, expensive and actively detrimental.

Vexing Shusher: No way around it, this guy is not mana-efficient (at least by Animar's standards!) But he can be used a lot more flexibly than the other options i listed, most importantly to protect our noncreature casts. He can proactively help an opponent win a counter war to save the game, or simply protect our key casts like the other options. he has no downside beside costing 2 CMC. hell, you can't even Stifle the little guy if I have enough mana to keep activating him. He's kinda like having as many Red Elemental Blasts as we'll ever need. I'm not sure we really need any, but if I wanted to add one, he'd get the nod.

So what do you guys think? do you have trouble with counters? which of the options above do you prefer? Shusher is probably my 101st card for the deck right now, but do you think Metamorph is worse? feels like old tech to me, all things considered, but im open to discussion.

I run Cavern of Souls but I'm not super fond of it. I consider it a necessary evil. It has helped me get Animar down, but a lot of the time it's just a land that produces colorless mana (aka, often anywhere from lackluster to useless). If you are facing a lot of counters then it may be worth it, but otherwise you may find it more of an annoyance then a benefit.

I don't like Dosan the Falling Leaf. The double green to cast it is a pain if you are trying to cast it the same turn you are wanting to combo off, and I wouldn't want it to just sit on the board where it prevent your opponents from interfering with each other.

Gaea's Herald is mana efficient but potentially helps decks like Gitrog to get its commander down past counterspells. You will either have to let is sit in your hand as a dead draw until you are ready to combo, or you cast it to get a counter on Animar and run the risk of your opponents getting use out of it before you do.

Your experience with Prowling Serpopard was interesting to read. I don't have enough experience with it to offer an educated opinion.

Vexing Shusher's cost is at least flexible, using up the red mana that you may not otherwise use that turn. I don't think that it fits into any of the faster plays that Animar may want to make, but if the game gets stalled out it might work for getting a key spell through. It seems pretty clunky most of the time though.

I think Dosan and Herald should be struck from the list entirely. The others are pretty "meh" and are more likely meta picks than potential core cards for the deck.

Definitely agree. Serp and Shusher are the two top picks for the deck. I also hate having to run Caverns after all the work i've done on my manabase, but like you said, the meta sometimes just calls for it. Honestly I'm not too keen on any of these options; I'd prefer something to smooth the deck out a bit more.

I use Shusher and this little guy is amazing. It's true its cost is kind of a burden but at least it allows you to use any combination of green and red mana to cast it. In some games I have used a tutor to search for him, cast him and then win. In the worst scenearios my shusher is targetted by sword to plowshares or path to exile but its better him than the Ancestral statue I have in my hand. I consider Gaea's herald and Dozan out of question, they dont deserve a seat in our decks. I tested serpopard before I got my susher but I realized it was a shame it cant save your non creature spells from being countered, so I got a susher and it has saved me a lot in my heavy counter meta.

Yeah, that's been the result of my testing as well. I'm having more and more counter-heavy decks appearing in my meta, which is why I've started reconsidering this stuff. Again, even the Shusher may not really be necessary in my meta, but its def something to test.

Yeah. I play in a meta with stax and insane combo decks. That's the reason I had to include more counters. Spellseeker is an all star in my deck to get the counters I need. I got a question, I also use sylvan safekeeper as a protecting piece, have you tested kira the glass spinner? Is it worth adding it for more protection or is it kind of useless? I prefer sylvan over kira for two main reasons: First it costs 1 mana and can hit game earlier than animar. Second it gives shroud until the end of turn, kira just counters the first spell, but a Second spell will get us out of guard. I ask if it is worth to have both in the deck.

No, Kira Isn't worth it in my experience. UU is a lot to pay for an effect your opponents can play around relatively easily. Admittedly, it's unlikely they'll have 2 relevant targeting spells, but the cost is still onerous, especially compared to options like Safekeeper and of course our hero Skite. For 2-3 U, I'd almost always just tutor/play Glen.

Now if you want another effect to protect Animar, I'd recommend Siren Stormtamer. It has the benefit of being almost totally painless to cast. It only covers one target, but again, its rare to see more than one.

What up JMCraig! Just wanted to report from my multiplayer tournament. Kiki-Jiki did some WORK! I got into top 4 and took 3rd with it. My group ended up getting 1st 2nd and 3rd for a total of 250 dollars in store credit and I was super happy about animar's performance that day. Question on Momir Vig, Simic Visionary though. I like the idea of him but I feel as though he still may be too slow. The idea of consistency is amazing but I feel as though Vizier of the Menagerie just does it better in that slot. I have to deal with a lot of torpor orb so Ainok Survivalist is key. I also have a worry that if I exile with the dweller, it will be a relevant later that I can't cast now. Have you had time to playtest lately and what are your thoughts on these cards so far if so? Thanks dude!

Riftsweeper can be run if you are really are scared, but I think it is certainly worth the risk, like Gamble!

YES I DID IT! 100th upvote! I have been waiting for that!

On your results: congrats man! sounds like a great time!

Vig: yeah, he's a bit slow, but the inevitability is hard to overstate. If he sticks, you're going to have your wincon in just a few casts, no way around it. an opponent recently described him as a "must answer" card. the deck is a lot better optimized now than when i cut him back in the day, and that makes it a lot easier to use him. Vizier is a very different card, honestly. it gives you bulk card advantage while Vig provides repeatable tutoring, like Fauna Shaman. I'm liking him in my testing.

Oracle: the risk is very minor. we run a ton of redundancy for our main gameplan (and Kiki too!), and if there's even a remote chance of flipping a vital piece without being able to use it, you can just not activate the oracle. he's mainly used when I have Animar all set up waiting for statue/a tutor, or when i know my top card bc I just tutored it into place. Again, I'd compare the play pattern with this guy to that of Clamp; it's obviously not as powerful, but enables a lot of the same crazy digs.

Ainok: 100% a meta call, for sure. And honestly if your meta is using Torp as their anti-Animar tech, you're in good shape; i'd much rather face that than a bunch of hard counters and boardwipes every turn! maybe grab a Slyvok replica and Nantuko Vigilante just in case!

Hey guys, minor update: Phyrexian Metamorph has been swapped back to Dream Stalker after a bunch of testing tonight. The metamorph is a solid bit of tech that works great with Animar, but like all clones he needs a good piece of value on board to copy, which is sub-optimal. Stalker is pretty weak as well BUT he has a bit more flexibility in the deck given that he can always just bounce himself for a free counter on Animar. Again, narrow, but beats Morph in my experience. Still, this slot is def my first choice to cut, and hopefully Commander 2018 will give us a great card!

Also notable:

Bane is a spicy card but he crapped out in testing. he can def steal a game in some circumstances, but he's just plain bulky. not a fan, even with Grix storm and Chain Veil Teferi on the table.

Vexing Shusher is also out. I had it in a few games but never needed it, again even with some pretty counter-heavy decks on the table. Best thing it did all night was feed a Fauna Shaman.

Momir Vig was actually a really strong play. even when I was tight on mana with Animar dead twice, treating a repeatable tutor for 5CMC was a good move. he even managed to reinvigorate a dead Mox Amber with Animar out of the picture. 5 is definitely an obnoxious CMC and I wish he was cheaper but the value is definitely there. The on;ly real downside is needing at least one green creature in hand for immediate value, but thats not asking a lot for the deck.

And for what its worth, I averaged about a 2/3 winrate over ~12 games. Statue racked half those wins, with Kiki keeping up handily. In fact, of our losses, half came when my opponent main-phased his lab man then popped a Consult in his upkeep. Our answers do not line up particularly well against that line. Ballista saved me in the last game though, mainly BC Drake felt a lot less spicy. Good games as always!

One of my favorite aspects of running the Kiki combo in Animar is that sometimes opponents get so caught up in counting Animar's counters that when they manage to remove Animar they think they are safe. If you keep emphasizing the counters when you play your opponents may not be paying attention to how you are setting up the rest of your board. They focus on taking out Animar, and when they do they think they've bought themselves time. It's in situations like that where Kiki can sneak in out of nowhere for a win.

That's an impressive win rate btw, especially since I think I recall that you often play against faster combo decks like Gitrog and Breakfast Hulk. I remember that you have at least one Blood Pod player in your meta, but would you say that there is a reasonable number of control/stax decks that keep the other combo decks in line? I've been under the impression that some of your games go on for a while.

The performances of Bane and Shusher seem to be in line with what people here expected of them. You can always hope that cards like those surprise you though, especially after the deck has gone through as many changes as this one has over the past couple of months, so they are worth testing.

Yeah i did better than average tonight so i got a little hyped up to post. the games tonight were also all 1v1 against Kess Tide since most of the guys werent able to make it out, and Animar thrives in that environment (less hate). my opponents deck is def a turn faster, but i think the topdecks werent in his favor. usually we're pretty much even, or hes a little favored.

and yeah, having pod around helps a ton. animar's grindy game is pretty decent with all the tutors/redundancy we run, so im usually able to make more win attempts than some of the more fragile decks. an of course when the other fast combo decks show up it gets trickier. for example, i played a few trios last week with kess and teferi and tef absolutely hosed the table. i think i won once all night. and when hulk comes to the table i definitely have tp lean on my opponents to control him a bit.

your point about kiki is savvy too. being able to bait removal on animar with the kiki combo lined is a ton of fun. conversely, threatening a kiki when your holding statue is a treat.

Yeah, kiki is so marvelous. Last night I played in a pod of 4 players, and I win 3/4 games, against Tazri, Valroz and green selvala. The first game I did some badass things; the tazri player played adnauseam until he had 1 life, but he couldnt dig out food chain. Then I played pestermite and tapped his city of brass XD. In next game he played gilded drake in exchange for my Animar and told me "you dont have animar now, how will you play now?" I think he didnt see kiki jiki combo coming. Even if animar isnt in play we have option to win. That's what I like about the deck.

I've had to use Pestermite in some creative ways before, but using it to tap down a City of Brass to score a kill is pretty friggen funny. Well done!

I've used my own Gilded Drake to steal back Animar on more than a few occasions. I've also used Phantasmal Image and Phyrexian Metamorph to clone the Drake (or Animar itself if the Drake is no longer around). I don't think I've had to resort to using Man-o'-War to bounce it back to my hand yet, although I've always kept it in mind as an option.

My favorite play in this vein was a while ago before I added kiki. an opponent used Song of the Dryads to turn Animar into a forest, and I'd already spent my Ainok (and Caustic Caterpillar wasn't printed as far as i kno). I had to use Crop rotation to sac tree-animar into a Cradel, which made easily enough mana for me to recast him.

But yeah, I've really enjoyed Kiki in the deck, despite being so agaist it for so long. I got hung up on having to give up 3 deck slots to combo pieces that i underestimated how much flexibility they'd add to the deck and how much they'd do even outside the combo turn. good stuff!

So I found a copy of Mystic Remora in one of my boxes of older cards, and it got me to start thinking about the viability of running it in Animar.

Animar is a proactive deck, which makes the upkeep cost a major pain when you are trying to go turn 1 mana dork into turn 2 Animar. The turn 2-3 range where the Remora would net the most value has, ideally, already been committed to casting Animar and getting some counters on to it so that you can go for a potential turn 4-5 win. In that regard, the Remora doesn't seem to have much of a place in the deck.

However, you can hardly expect things to go as planned. Sometimes you just don't have that mana dork and have to accept a turn 3 Animar, or you do get that turn 2 Animar only to have it hit with a Pongify and you are forced to wait a couple more turns to get it again. And, of course, sometimes Animar just needs to take a few turns to recover from a board wipe.

So the question is, how many cards would you need to draw off of the Remora for it to be worth spending the mana on instead of casting a creature? Would 2 cards for 1 mana be worth it? And what if you decide to pay the upkeep cost for one turn? How many cards would be worth the commitment of 2 mana? One thing in Remora's favor is that, unlike Rhystic Study, you can cast it turn 4 or 5 and still expect to potentially draw cards off of it so it's a viable option when you are stalled out in the mid to late game and need to dig for more gas.

Has anyone here tried running Mystic Remora in Animar before? I know that things can look good on paper and just not work out in practice, so I'd be interested in hearing any first-hand experience people may have with the card.

Well, it is a powerful EDH card, like Brainstorm, Preordain or Ponder, I would run it as such.

I tested it briefly and encountered the exact issue you mention. It's tricky to pay upkeep even once, and artifact-mana decks can just hold off casting their Crypts/Signets for a turn or two. Our deck isnt very explosive from turns 1-2, so it ends up hurting us a lot at that point in the game. you're essentially making the initial Animar cast, which has always been a pinch-point, even more difficult.

Now, there are a few times I'll do this gladly. for example, a turn 1-2 Library is just insane value. So perhaps thats the standard Remora would need to meet: 2 extra draws per turn for 2 mana upfront, completely disregarding our opponents' play patterns. And of course Survival is just crazy; getting it down early means you'll have a guaranteed way to play around whatever your opponent does (though even then, its better right after Animar in most games). Scales is the final example, but again, its often best right after Animar.

So despite really loving Remora (my fav turn 1 play in Zur), he's not quite the right fit for Animar.

A little late to the party. So far here is my $.02.

Cards we need

I concur with those being the main focus for additions. My preference would be more draw effects similar to visionary. Following that a multicolored dork, even something like cantor would be beneficial.

New Cards

Not much has excited me as of late, aside from what has already been discussed (Spellseeker, Mox Amber).

I hope C18 brings us some spice that would fit in any of the three categories we need upgraded. So I am just slowly picking up more foils as of now. Mox, Animar, and Spellseeker are on a downward trend, so seems like a good grab.

Looking forward to getting my cards here. Unfortunately, Animar might be a bit much for the current group. Hopefully I can raise the bar here like I have done everywhere else.

@AlarmedNine I've moved around a fair bit over the years, so I sympathize with the challenge of slowly encouraging new groups to up their game to a point where you don't feel quite so guilty about playing more competitive decks.

The commander players at my current LGS have slowly been upping the power level of their decks in the time that I have been here, but it is still a pretty tiered group. You have a few people who are relatively new to the format, a bulk who are mostly there for casual fun (decks worth around $200-300), and a handful who are pretty competitive and the general favorites to win when they sit down at the table. Pods don't get divided by power level because everyone trickles in at different times and not everyone shows up each week, so luck of the draw tends to determine who you are playing with.

In respect to the other players who just want to have some fun games, I generally don't play my really competitive decks like Animar. Occasionally I'll ask if it is alright if I pull the deck out if I only have 20 minutes before I have to leave and I want to try to squeeze in one more game. Those games are normally me versus the other three to see if I can win before they kill me or I run out of time.

Well being out here it changes on the regular. The group is definitely beginner friendly. Fat creatures and board wipes. No spot removal or counterspells. Definitely some room to grow. It is one of my favorite things to teach players that they can up there game and it literally cost them nothing.

I have been looking at some budget decks, but I am just waiting on c18, and will just use those. I wasn't really excited about the new Anthology.