@AlarmedNine: have you tried the new Dark Dweller Oracle? i'm a hug fan!

I have not. You gotta card link?

Nvm found it. Hmmm. I Like the face value of it. Digs hard when we have a plethora of dorks

Thoughts on the newly spoiled Forge of Heroes?

Painfully slow. It can't be used if we want to get a turn 2 Animar, and on later turns just becomes a Wastes. On subsequent Animar casts it may be useful, but even then it's basically a dead land drop.

Also, extra counters have rarely been the limiting factor in the deck. Colored mana is a much more limiting resource. Better to cast a few cheap creatures and get some incidental value than hurt our tempo with this land.

Yea after a running a few scenario, I dont think it is worth a spot.

Yeah, Treasure Nabber may be worth it... it is insane

I liked Nabber too bc it hoses a few combos, but the problem is that in the early game, opponents will tap their Crypt/Vault/signet etc for mana, lose it for your turn, then get it back on theirs. meanwhile, we gain nothing from most mana artifacts, which is why we run so few. if they choose to hold up mana for a potential counter/tutor in the end step, they can do so with no downside.

Manglehorn has a similar set of downsides, but is a least a better option for this slot bc it guarantees some value on ETB, in my opinion.

I understand, but so many combos get obliterated by it, and I think it is a good meta choice, I was just saying in comparison to Forge of Heroes it is a better choice.

yeah, most playable pick so far.

What combos are hit by it tho? Teferi+TCV loses its rocks, which is excellent, but Scepter can just go off with the steal trigger on the stack. Paradox does get hosed pretty bad, but not many other prominent combos (at least in my meta) would lose out to this. Def hoping we can make him work; its a spicy effect!

Loyal Drake seems like good card draw!

Also, storm was the deck I meant, many decks, like Shimmer Zur storm, reuse and use mana rocks with Rebuild and Hurkyl's Recall, yes they can still cast them while the triggers are on the stack, but they normally cast a whole number of spells with the mana to find their mass bounce effects, like Timetwister or Windfall, and they can't use those while the steal triggers are on the stack.

Arcum Dagsson and Sisay Paradox Engine combo get hit really hard too, but that is just gravy. Also, I imagine plenty of good Mox Diamonds, Fellwar Stones, Chrome Moxes, and other such colored rocks will be incidentally stolen, not just colorless ones, so it acts as value for us, speeding our turns, and also acts as hate to storm and paradox combo. That is why I think it deserves at least serious consideration and testing.

Fair enough. I dont have many of those decks in the meta (used to play with a sisay guy but he switched to Kess Storm) so I stand less to gain from this. def a solid meta pick though!

Now Drake seems really cool! its 1 CMC higher than I'd like for a draw 1 effect, but if he survives even one turn he's effectively a Mulldrifter. That's really solid value. I'm def gonna scoop one of these and try him out for sure!

Please do!

I saw loyal drake and wanted to try it out as well

It synergizes nicely with the lines we usually want to play. typical play i imagine is: tutor to top of deck, drake, combat, go off in main two. At that point its basically a worse Elvish Visionary, but even just one extra turn pushes the value above average.

It's no Mulldrifter for sure, but i think we can consistently cast it early enough to get a good bit of value out of it more often than not. I see the floor as a 3-mana draw-1 on ETB (with a minor downside of precluding combat lines), but the ceiling is, realistically, 2-3 cards for 1 mana in an intense game.

That said, it could just be too damn obnoxious to mess around with phase changes, but we'll see. Another possible downside is that it plays poorly with our ETB synergies, but again, that may or may not kill this guy for the deck. I'll prob swap this for Vig and see how it goes.

I think that it's funny that Nabber's flavor text tries to discourage you from pulling off tricks like sacrificing your opponents' mana rocks to cards like Shattergang Brothers, Krark-Clan Ironworks, and Daretti, Scrap Savant.

The drake strikes me as being a little too slow to benefit from unless the game has stalled out.

I've recently put a competitive Animar build together and I want to hear your thoughts on Green Sun's Zenith. I feel like the card is awfully slow and really only grabs a mana dork. The deck is so light on lands that Chord of Calling makes more sense to me because you can take advantage of convoke and grab any creature, not just a green one.

Early game GSZ can grab a Llanowar Elf or something, but if I'm set up for a turn two Animar I almost never want to cast it. I'd rather empty my hand and Chord out a combo piece or Muldrifter or anything besides a dork. But I'm open to being enlightened!

GSZ is for Dryad Arbor man!

Zenith is very narrow. it's role is generally to get a few very niche, very relevant low-cmc targets.

• 0CMC: arbor. not the only reason zenith is in the deck. in fact, i added this only bc zentih is in the deck, and its a really obnoxious card.
• 1CMC: Sylvan Safekeeper. this is the main reason for zenith. hes a strong enough protection effect that i'd gladly play a second copy at 2CMC. Caustic caterpillar is another great piece of neta-specific interaction to fetch up.
• 2CMC: fauna shaman is an obvious pick, but scavenging ooze is super relevant meta tech here.

So GSZ isn't a combo-enabling tutor, its more of a role-player. I like having the extra flexibility in that slot, but it's def one of the more cut-able tutors.

Despite having Convoke, Chord of Calling is still pretty demanding with its mana cost. I run it, but would be happy to replace it with Sylvan Tutor the first chance I get due to the synergy with Spellseeker and better early-game setup possibilities. Convoke often feels less relevant when a bunch of your early game creatures are already mana dorks.

To its benefit though, Chord is instant speed so it can let you tutor up a Sylvan Safekeeper or Spellskite when your opponent thinks you are tapped out and tries to use spot removal on Animar.

Ehh... do you regularly have 4-5 non-mana dork, untapped creatures, which three are green? Being fully tapped out is nearly impossible for Chord of Calling, in the scenario you described, SaberTech

I think it's pretty undeniable that cord is powerful when you have a strong boardstate, the problem is that when you're in bad shape it's becomes really difficult to cast. evaluating how a card performs in the worst case scenario is very relevant, especially when you're looking for card that can help bailing you out.

basically, cord isn't very flexible, and only does good work at a point in the game when lots of other cards would too. Hell, if you have Cord mana, you're already closing in on enough mana for Open the Menagerie or Defense of the heart or even T&N.

basically, its rare that I'll get to a boardstate where cord is a viable option before finding a better one along the way; the deck has a ton of good tutors as is (amd even a few mediocre ones).

I feel like I am not on the internet when I read these well-thought-out comments... It's doesn't seem nearly as noisy and stupid as reddit... no trolls or people who don't understand basic stuff here...

So I guess I have to through out some dumb thoughts:

Ugh, you are so dumb! Why do you run Ancestral Statue? clearly it should be a Timetwister, because that card is way more expensive, which is the best metric for a cards power.

Nah, that doesn't seem right... Oh, that's right, I spelled things properly, linked cards so you don't have to look them up or remember them, and it isn't large enough, also, I used proper grammar and capitalization. I also didn't attack you personally.

AGJHAHA u R sOOOO DFum!!!! Y DU U rUn Acestrael Ftatue? claerly IS SUPPODES 2 B A TieTwister, CAUS Tat CAR is WAAAY > PRICTY, WHICH MEANS IT IS STRICTLY BETTER LIKE STORM CROW!!!! u suk as a person, U NO TAT RIGHT?!

That seems about right. I have made this comment section a real part of the internet, you are welcome.

@SynergyBuild The way that you have phrased your question has me a little confused as to what exactly you are asking. If you are asking me if there are situations where my lands are all tapped and I have 4-5 untapped creatures, at least 3 of which are green and none are mana dorks, then yes I see that as a possible situation to be in as early as turn 4. I have pretty bad luck with my draws, even after multiple mulligans, so I've had to contend with some awkward first few turns in the past.

When I said "tapped out" I was referring to obvious mana sources that the opponent could see, not that everything on my board was tapped down.

And I'm not defending the inclusion of Chord here, I would happily replace it as soon as I can get my hands on something else. All I was doing was pointing out a very niche usage of the card.

Thats it, i'm leaving for Discord!