Fair points from both of you. I have been off the deck for a bit, so my play has digressed a bit.

Check out Generous Stray. Looks like you got your “etb, draw a card” on a creature, but is 2G too much?

@IamSpeeding Yeah, 3 mana seems a little much to just draw a card. At that cost you would expect Generous Stray to be able to do a little more. It's a strictly worse Sea Gate Oracle. I'm surprised that it isn't a 2/2, you would think that as a green creature it would get an extra point to power over the Oracle in exchange for not being as good at digging into your library. Still, a cantrip is a cantrip, but I can't think of any cards in the deck that I would be inclined to take out for the Stray.

There are actually a fair number of etb:draw guys at 3 already. it's just too expensive without also giving us a little selection to justify the extra cost over something like Visionary or Wall of Blossoms.

For reference, this is basically what we have currently. My personal rule is that at 2 CMC a card should draw on ETB and effectively replace itself, and at 3CMC it has to provide a little selection. We can dig a bit deeper and consider cards like Omenspeaker and Champion of Wits, but in my experience its important for us to maintain card advantage if we're not getting on-board value from our casts. the deck needs to keep up momentum!

Just say Stray, and I concur with SaberTech. Just a bit out of range, maybe if they flipped it to a 2/1 so it was clamp-able.

I'd play Champ if wits if I were looking for another Cantrip creature. There are plenty of 2CMC looters, but it double-loots, which almost makes up for not maintaining card advantage. I always love WHirlpool Warrior/Rider, but they're not honestly very useful given that they can't refill us (see Winds of Change vs. any real Wheel). Slithermuse is another one to consider but it's a little conditional for me, personally.

Dang, Ironsheel Beetle gets a reprint instead of knocking one off the CMC and making a functionally-identical Bond Beetle? thats a shame. The effect is just not the same when its not 1CMC.

Yeah, that one mana makes a big difference. I get why they would choose to go with Ironshell Beetle though, a bear that can boost something else later in the game is a bit more useful overall than the Bond Beetle version.

Here's hoping this is a plant for an upcoming Simic mechanic that'll interact nicely with Animar! Even if getting extra counters is rarely our top priority, a counters-matter payoff card could be a big boon for us. I still want the "draw for each +1/+1 on one of your guys" effect some day, preferably an ETB on a cheap creature!

Sup guys, on the topic of ETB draw a card creatures - what are your thoughts on Skyscanner from M19? I couldn't find anything about that here, my bad if it was discussed already. Free cast and draw on 3 counters and no mana restriction with less than 3 seems pretty good, but 3 CMC is a lot more than 2. I was thinking it might be able to replace Wall of Blossoms which can't be Skullclamped as easily.

Its not worth it, maybe if it was 2 mana, but as is it is kinda expensive.

Yeah, 3CMC is just asking a lot. in my experience it's not worth the extra effort to cast. Same with the 4CMC brainstorm guy.

Hey JMCraig. Do you have a duel commander Animar deck version? If not, can you recommend one? Besides. What are your thoughts about playing Animar in versus environments?

I've got no experience in duel commander, unfortunately. I talked to a guy who was doing really well on MTGO a while back, but with how rapidly and stupidly that format changes, any advice he gave is prob outdated.

Regardless, the gist of it was that you should play a solid backup wincon or two besides just Statue, bc your opponents will be playing more removal and it'll all be coming for you. he recommended Earthcraft and even Cloudstone with a few extra Morphs. You can do the Recruiter+Metamorph line if you want, but i suspect that would lead to a lot of bad situations where you pay out all your life, attack into a combat trick, then get beaten down by Kraum or burned by Breya.

All that said, i'm no expert, and I'd recommend you find lists for your specific 1v1 format. if you're looking for more narrow advice, like how to integrate other wincons or what good removal options we can add to the deck, hen i'll be happy to help!

Well, I have been playing your list (a similar one due to budget restrictions) and I found it useful. It's fast and solid. When I face black o white players I win most of the time, they can´t respond to Animar. I found earthcraft useful since you just need a 21/21 Animar to win. Other options I am considering are to include utility cards that allow me to tap opponents creatures or make Animar unblockable. Some utility creatures for land destruction are nice as well. Maybe I should use impact tremors, reckless fireweaver and grapeshoot.

I'd recommend adding Thassa to the list for unblockable value and topdeck filtering. you may also want some better anti-counter tech like Serpopard and Shusher. If you want an additional combo on top of Animar+Statue and Kiki, Earthcraft seems like a good pick. Just make sure your manabase can support another basic or two.

In fact, i could even see adding the Hoverguard line back in, because it's a good blocker-remover at minimum, and a solid alt-win in the best cases.

yeah, those cards sound great, i'll give them a try. Thanks a lot!

Looked through my binder and i have a few more suggestions:

• Goblin Chirurgeon and Siren Stormtamer for defense against point removal.
• Edric for draw
• Rishkar for extra counters
• Ulvenwald Tracker/Lavamancer for creature control
• Temur Sabretooth as a combo enabler/pretection
• Mangle/Rec Sage for artifact control (more relevant in 1v1)
• Simian/Elvish guides to replace banned rocks
• Momir/Signal the clans to replace banned tutors

Good luck!

Gaea's Cradle, Chrome Mox, and Mox Diamond are banned in duel commander so those would have to come out.

I agree that Prowling Serpopard should go in but there might be an argument for Gaea's Herald over Vexing Shusher. Since Animar doesn't run many counterspells, you could look at Dosan the Falling Leaf as a way to stop both counters and removal spells on the turn you want to combo off. If you are willing to look at non-creature inclusions, Autumn's Veil is another option.

I would also suggest considering Scryb Ranger. It's ability can untap Kiki if the opponents tries to stop you from comboing with removal, which would allow you to keep the combo going. It can help with mana ramping by untapping mana dorks or just returning a Tropical Island or Taiga to be replayed if you don't have another land to drop that turn. Its Protection from Blue also makes it a surprisingly viable blocker against a lot of the more aggressive commanders.

Because your life total is only 20 in Duel Commander, red decks are a lot more viable. Lightning Bolt sees a lot of play, as do other burn spells, which means that there are a lot more removal options floating around that can hit Animar. Lots of decks also run a Vintage format style package of blue and black counters and removal. Animar itself doesn't need to worry about the black spot removal but it does have to look out for the higher percentage of blue bounce spells. All of this makes Animar more fragile than it is in cEDH, so you will have to both play the deck more carefully and possibly shave some of the cards that are in for consistency out for a slightly higher concentration of cards that can function as stand-alone threats.

Animar decks used to see around a 1% meta play-rate at duel commander tournaments but was still powerful enough that for a while it was on their watch-list as a potential commander that needed to be banned. Now it looks like it sees less play than that, which is likely due to the life total being dropped from 30 to 20 and making red more viable in the format.

JMCraig wait. You call targetted removal 'point removal'? xD

Like 'spot removal' I have heard and thought was weird, but apparently Council's Judgment and other stuff aren't really 'targetted removal', so whatever, but really, 'point removal?'

No disrespect, but it caught me off-guard.

Wait.. No Beast Whisperer? or are you waiting until release date?

Sabre: great info, thanks!

Synergy: lol, "point removal" is kinda weird i guess; not sure where i picked that up! and yeah, Beast and Cratermaker are preorderd already and they're in the changelog. I'll add them to the deck on release. it's been a great set!

I tend to use the term "spot removal." I don't know where I picked up the usage from, but I had always assumed that it was short for "on-the-spot removal." I use it as an alternative term for targeted removal, but I think I switch to it more when I am talking about instant speed removal.

"When the opponent casts that creature you better kill it on the spot or you are going to lose."

Hmm, i assumed the term "spot removal" was derived the fact that it addressed a single, narrow threat rather than the whole board. similar to "spot cleaning".

i think "Point removal" was more common back in the day. it shows up in some old Mike Flores columns and stuff. I assume the etymology there is the same as "spot removal" in that your effect is addressing a single threat.

Luckily, with Animar, we dont need to worry much about it!

Chain of Vapor is glaring angrily at Animar, with a Beast Within and Chaos Warp in the sidelines laughing hysterically, while little Animar is calling his friend Sylvan Safekeeper, stuck on the stack because Chain of Vapor was in response, but luckily a timely Mental Misstep was cast! Animar saves the day, before immediately making infinite Triggers from an Ancestral Statue and massacring everyone else with a Walking Ballista. Not really saving, is it?