And yeah, Sabre, good point. Cord has some real niche uses. it's still on my 10-is card shortlist for inclusion in the deck, but it's edged out by a few better options.

regarding your bad draws, thats definitely not on your end! Animar, without a lot of good filtering (ie cantrips) is frighteningly topdeck-dependent sometimes. That's the main reason I'm running easily twice as many tutors as you'd see in a lot of cEDH decks; bc we usually need to fetch exactly what we want and cant hope for good draws. we're also lucky enough to have access to a lot of good tutors as well, with Cord falling just on the verge of playable in a no-budget build.

Honestly, Shared Discovery might have more application than Chord of Calling at that point.

Possibly. Pretty sure I've seen Shared Discovery run in some Duel Commander Animar lists. The conditional tutoring is a bit more to my taste than the conditional cards draw, but I can see an argument for either.

Neither of them should be in a fully optimized cEDH list though. I just tend to offer my two cents regarding the pros and cons of cards like Chord of Calling when people start asking about more budget card options.

Yeah, cord is a fantastic replacement for Sylvan. Shared is kinda neat but I'd usually prefer the tutor, since they both become playable only once you have a good sized board and are ready to win. draw effects are better a turn or two earlier when you're casting your first few guys and just need to keep the card advantage flowing.

Like I've commented before, I think that Chord of Calling can be a pretty frustrating inclusion in Animar. As a budget option though, it is possible for Chord to help you get Ancestral Statue out on turn 4.

Turn 1) land + mana dork. Turn 2) land + Animar. Turn 3) Land + manage to cast 3 creatures. Turn 4) Land. You should now be able to cast Chord where X is 4 to get Statue and bounce it back to your hand. Animar should still be untapped and you'll have 1 mana left over to cast Statue for Animar's 4th counter to set up for infinite counters on Animar.

There are another few situations where Chord can be helpful, but really, it's just a placeholder for when you decide it is worth the monetary investment to get Sylvan Tutor.

I like Lt. Drake. I would have preferred an ETB for 1U, but I think the trigger is fine. Especially since it can net more than 1 card.

Side Note: I am really sad how they dumped on the Jund deck.

Eh, the jund deck is pretty weak, but not a lot of precons are amazing out of the box. plus they're trying to cater to 3 different exchangeable commanders (like the cat deck last year) so its totally unfocused. Honestly this is better than some of the first Commander releases that were a total mess. Look how clunky Animar plays out of the box! Prossh was a shitshow.

Also, we just got Crucible and Scapeshift reprints in a core set where they're a lot more accessible, and now the deck has a better commander then Xira Arien, so the casual lands-matter crowd has some decent stuff to work with.

Mainly tho, people wanted a different flavor of "lands matter" than Wizards usually prints, especially in commander precons. these decks are meant to be simple and give you room to grow into stronger cards like Gitrog. The price people pay for playing strategies WotC doesnt like is finding mediocre support. even if Gavin says they're doing a lands-matter theme, youve got to temper your expectations, bc they'll inevitably do it their way.

That Drake tho seems really promising. could very easily net us 2-3 cards, even if it takes a couple turns. i like it more than Runic Armasaur, for example.

I know most of this page knows better, but if anyones wondering, that new 4CMC Dark Depths mana dork is just not good for comp Animar. We don't need slow ramp or big beaters.

That static GY-hate Ooze is def playable situational interaction tho. if you have a lot of Hulk or something in your meta, i'd even consider it. ScOoze is prob better in an open meta tho, since it doesnt rely on the opposing creatures "dying".

A recent WotC article was saying that the design focus for Commander 2018 was to respond to player requests and create commanders to help support particular strategies. So we finally get R/U artifact commanders that people have been asking for since the start, several solid band enchantment commanders, Esper gets a strong zombie commander, and the Jund deck has legendary creatures that fit a number of fringe casual archetypes. Plus it's great to see some of MtG's old characters get cards.

That bant enchantment deck is getting a lot of on-theme card advantage engines. It's going to be pretty tough to keep pace with if you are just playing the decks out of the box with your friends.

Yeah, Gavin is a good designer. C18 and Battleborn both seem like they were really dialed-in to the community. The Jund one being a bit unfocused is pretty par-for-the-course too, but youre right that the Enchant deck is gonna be a tough matchup out-of-the-box just bc its more coherent. but heck, consistency isn't always something Commander players build for, so I'm sure there will be an audience for every deck.

And since we've seen a couple situational, B-level options for Animar already, I'm optimistic about what the last deck may have for us!

I am pretty happy with ooze so far in the new cards but am still waiting for like a spellseeker/dark dweller oracle or something fun for animar that make the deck even better I am starting to feel (my opinion) that this year is going to be not great since partners were probably a little too far and tribal was their first step back towards catering to the casual community. Given some of the commmanders were really strong (inalla/kess) and a few more im porbably missing. I am hoping even if we dont get something great that some of the cedh decks get something fun to work with that could help spice up the metas. I am mostly looking at cards people in my personal play group would want to build around but a lot of the commanders so far seems be along the lines of over costed or in a combat matters theme. Not every card I get should be busted but it is always nice to see some new cards slotted into decks or some new build arounds. Just wanted to chime in for some discussion with you since i commonly read this page every few weeks to see what new things you guys are coming up with.

Yeah, we def haven't seen this year's Kess or Thrasios, as far as I can tell. None of the new commanders in the first three decks seem like they'll shake up the cEDH meta, and the new supporting cards are pretty mild. I'm also hoping for a new homerun Animar card, so fingers crossed!

I have a good friend that is a gitrog player that wanted a new lands commander to toy around with and he has been sorely disappointed. I have also seems a lot of the zur players want a alternate type commander like kess/jeleva for enchantments. The planeswalkers I was really sad about not being great because we got teferi and daretti in the previous cycle and the other ones were at least okay. There are still quite a few spoilers left so we will see what happens. I am curious to see if we get any needed reprints like wurmcoil a few years ago or many of the other reprints in previous years.

I mean, Jeleva was a bad card that needed an upgrade, so i'm not too surprised she's been pretty summarily replaced by Kess. Gitrog and Zur, on the other hand, are really good at what they do, and are also not the kinds of effects you tend to see in casual products (semi-deterministic land-destruction dredge synergies? mass tutors?)

Still, every year does seem to give us a really strong new comp commander, so I'm optimistic. The real question is, with Partners raising the bar, will a new Commander be able to thread the needle between "precon-safe" and "cEDH playable"? It can't be easy to design something like that, and I don't blame WotC for playing it safe, especially with Gavin and the design team consulting heavily with the RC this year.

So fingers-crossed for tomorrow! I'm hoping for (another) playabe blue draw-guy! a new Commander to see across the table would be great too!

I enjoy kess a lot more than jeleva but thats more of a meta pick I don't have much stax so for dd storm doesnt matter much which is nice. On the next point though the part that doesnt make sense is how a random card most people didnt know could be broken (at least most I feel like didnt understand how good gitrog was at first and thought it was a good meme deck) because at first glance many people dont understand how great dredge is especially in commander can be worse than a deck that is dedicated to lands. I do feel like it was safer to do it the way that they did but for the themes of the decks the commanders feel lack luster and fringish to the point where I dont find them appealing to play and I do not know how others will find them fun but I guess there is a deck for everyone again just saying my opinion on this but thanks for responding back you always do in such a quick fashion which makes discussion easy and fun.

There are a number of possible commanders in the Commander 2018 decks that I think would be fun to build casual decks around, but Treasure Nabber is the only card thus far that I think might see occasional play in cEDH. Being able to steal opponents' mana rocks for more explosive plays and to fuel Dramatic Scepter/Paradox Engine combos could possibly find it a home in a few lists.

And while Lord Windgrace may not be cEDH worthy, he gives land decks access to both black tutors and red mass land destruction in one deck. He makes it real easy to recover and get ahead of your opponents after a Wildfire. That may result in him not seeing much play though because lots of people really don't like mass land destruction, and that is one of the few advantages that Windgrace brings over the flexibility of Muldrotha, the Gravetide or the consistency of Titania, Protector of Argoth.

Yeah, for Jund Stax Black Panther is the new go-to guy. Shattergang Bros is def phased out. I think Tana-Tymna does a better job at that tho.

But yeah, for casual games, there's a lot to work with here. The Leviathan man-land guy, the Ninja, Enchantress shenanigans, etc. could be a ton of fun!

I do got to say out of box all of these should be really fun to play it is looking like to me at least they have a lot of fun cards in them.

Yeah, precon league or something would be pretty great. Sadly I't looks like Animar didn't get any standouts this year, but Drake is a solid inclusion, and Ooze and Nabber are good meta choices. I'm happy with it!

Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign is a pretty scary commander. A little expensive at 5CMC, and not as powerful as the tutoring power of Zur, but it has great colors, good keywords, and an ability that can cheat out spells or, at minimum, net you a card.

It's probably too slow for cEDH but it's definitely going to be a monster to watch out for at the casual tables. There are a lot of good cards at CMC 3, 5, and 7 that I would be more than happy to be able to cast for free.

Yeah, I can see her acting a lot like Narset or Kaalia as a pubstomper. I'm still never a fan of "half and half" decks where you need both enablers and payoffs, and neither works well without the other, but in Esper you prob have the tools to make Yennett pretty consistent. But sadly, yeah, Zur pretty much drinks her milkshake.

Animar did very well this weekend going 4-1 at competitive tables (Kess storm, Teferi Chainveil, Razaketh mono-black shenanigans, etc). The one loss came on extreme hate directed at me capped off with a Hushwing. The lack of creature removal is a major problem, but I've been tinkering with including Cyclonic Rift after the inclusion of Spellseeker. Rift provides a tutorable removal spell (through the creature tutor -> Spellseeker path) that has late game application as well as spot removal in the early game. While this path is still hindered by a Mindsensor, you can still do things with your creatures as opposed to them flopping on the battlefield for nothing. Other thoughts: Sylvan Safekeeper, Glen Elendra and Phyrexian Revoker are absolutely clutch, there's nothing quite like your opponent playing Living Death not realizing there's a Kiki/Pestermite/Purphoros in your yard, and it is still fun to smash the mono-black players face with an absurdly large Animar. Disappointed CMD18 didn't give Animar anythings crazy, so here's to returning to the return of Ravnica!

Well, Loyal Drake is sweet! Good job on your performance!