Something I hadn't really thought about until recent testing is how Animar is supposed to remove Beast Whisperer from the board if you have it in play before going off with Ancestral Statue . The Caller's trigger is mandatory, so if it is out before the Statue you would end up decking yourself long before you were able to put enough counters on Animar to kill all your opponents with Walking Ballista . My deck still has enough jank cards in it that dealing with the Caller was never a real issue for me, but it is something that I have been thinking about more now that people are talking about potentially cutting Kiri.

Neoform and Eldritch Evolution can both sac the Caller, Kiri can bounce it, and in your list you could also use Dark-Dweller Oracle to sac the Caller. In theory, if you are drawing your deck you should be able to draw enough free mana sources to be able to use any of those options to get rid of the Caller. However, not everyone runs the Oracle and if they cut Kiri all they would have left are two spells, with a good chance that they may have used one of them to get the Statue. Thankfully, since both those spells require them to sac a creature as part of their casting cost, having those spells countered doesn't prevent them from getting the Caller off the board. If people can't afford the moxes though, or someone has Null Rod out, being able to cast those spells is a real concern.

I guess my conclusion from all of that is that if people decide to remove Kiri they should really consider including the Oracle as you have, or have some other bounce creature like Shrieking Drake or Man-o'-War that is able to get rid of the Caller.

Hello Im an avid animar player and I am running the new hydroid krasis as a form of draw within the deck as it synergizes with animar fairly well. Im definitely going to try the neoform line and cut Kiri and drake as well. What do you suggest i cut for kiki?

@PhotonGalaxy Most competitive Animar lists have put aside the Kiki-Jiki line due to a lot of people thinking that the in Kiki's cost is too mana intensive in Animar's splash color to be efficient. There is also the general idea that Pestermite and Deceiver Exarch aren't strong enough cards on their own, so their inclusion is a weak option outside of the Kiki combo.

I still include the Kiki package because I personally can't stand all of my winning combos to be dependant on Animar. In my experience, I win most often with the Neoform line because the mana for it is a lot easier to manage than the Kiri-Onna line, but I don't have an optimized land base so that is probably a factor. Getting Ancestral Statue + Beast Whisperer to draw my deck comes in at a far less common 2nd place as a winning line for me, and comboing with Kiki-Jiki only comes up every now and again.

If you still want to include Kiki in your deck, it would help if you post a decklist and link to it. It's a bit hard to suggest what you could take out if there is no way of knowing what is already in there.

Saber: to remove whisperer we can always bounce it with statue then use Meta to pick up Statue again, but i personally like feeding him to Oracle. We can even do fancy stuff like cast a half-power ballista, kill Whisperer and himself/some opponents, recur it with something, then keep going off with statue. Null Rod only bothers us in that speficic case, bc we can always rely on Statue's+Meta's triggered abilities to do some techy stuff for zero mana.

Photon/Saber: I still like Kiki a lot, and with a ton of gold lands (I honestly run a few too many bc there's no Blood Moon in my meta and I hate manascrew) the RRR isn't the real issue. These days I just prefer the slot-efficiency of the Neoform line. Kiki is a 3-slot combo whereas Neo requires only one slightly suboptimal inclusion (Meta, who's surprisingly pretty dece in a lot of scenarios; see above). Rec can actually 1-card win using either Neo or Kiki, but the kiki line is non-trivially more expensive, and agaim, involves more suboptimal cards. Neo also further focuses the deck on the Recruiter/Spellseeker synergies, which are really strong once we add a few more important inst/sorceries to the deck (Harvest!!).

So i think Kiki is a fun card to play, and you may want to include as an ancillary wincon it if Animar himself is being heavily targeted, but in a full-budget list with access to all the good lands for fixing, countermagic for protection and tutors for speed, Kiki just ends up being a bit clunkier than using Neo instead. and since you'd obviously want to include Neo in the deck no matter what, adding a single slot for Meta seems like a good call even if you want to keep Kiki.

I was just goldfishing a hand where I cast Glimpse of Nature to try drawing some cards and wound up drawing into Statue, enabling me to draw my deck. Normally I would not have been able to go off that turn due to being forced to wait for the Glimpse effect to end so that I didn't deck myself, but I was able to draw into Lotus Petal to cast Peregrine Drake and untap all my lands. That let me cast the Kiki combo for the win without decking myself. I count that as a plus for the Kiki combo since it doesn't rely on having to repeatedly bounce creatures.

I hadn't considered using Phyrexian Metamorph to bounce Ancestral Statue back for free, but that's probably because I seem to constantly play it prior to drawing the Statue, either due to the Neoform line or because I somehow seem to keep drawing it early. I play pretty loose with Metamorph because I have nothing against using it to copy an Elvish Visionary or any other value creature early in the game to net cards and hopefully draw into my combo pieces faster.

My problem with the Beast Whisperer is that I'll quite often have it on the board prior to going into the Neoform line. That means that by the time I get to tutor for Statue I'm usually tapped out and Metamorph is already on the field so it can't be used to bounce Statue if I use the statue to bounce the Whisperer. That often leaves me with having to find alternative ways to remove the Whisperer while still leaving the Statue free to bounce.

Honestly, even if I don't find Kiri worth including now that we have Neoform, I'm still inclined to leave in Peregrine Drake. There have been a lot of times where I was able to combo off turn four instead of five because I had Drake and Lotus Petal available in my deck to reset my lands.

I'm liking Phantasmal image as another generic value-clone effect, and bc it opens up some nice techy lines like these.

Drake is a neat combo piece for sure, but I haven't had any trouble getting mana since our biggest play is usually a Harvest for like 5 mana. with Rish and crop rot+Cradle in the deck especially I'm usually all set for G mana early on. but yeah for the "draw your deck" situations, Drake is a game changer for sure.

Those new Horizon lands are sweeeet. I probably wouldn't want them in a Kiri list, but having painlands that can cycle off the battlefield is great mid-late game. I'll def be picking some of these up.

Are the UR/UG Horizon Lands too much strain on the manabase? They tap for blue, right?

Yeah, exactly. They tap for U, but they cost a life to do it, so Kiri can't loop them without killing you. The upside tho is that they help if you're getting and flooded later on, or just desperately need to dig a bit, both of which are common situations with 100-card all-in combo decks. Plus you get some fringe synergy with topdeck tutors and Vizier, which is always nice.

I'll prob add both the new ones, and sit around hoping we get the full set eventually!

Do you think that Collector Ouphe is main deck worthy? Being able to shut down other decks' mana rocks helps Animar pull ahead in the speed race and it also prevents Isochron Scepter combos but I have a suspicion that it just comes down a little too late. It might be at its best as a turn 2 play if you are stuck having to wait until turn 3 to cast Animar, but I question how well it will work if you were to cast it turn 3 after getting Animar out turn 2.

I think he's def a good meta inclusion for 80% of the meta. These days I play against Edric a lot so it's not as relevant, but I'd want Ouphe maindeck for the blind meta and I'd only cut him if things got really inbred (ie, almost all Edric, Mono-G, UG combo etc.) I'd even consider adding GSZ and Dryad Arbor back in to give us another way to power out our most relevant hate.

Basically, even when he's not hating anything specific out of the game he's still a 2CMC green guy. That's not a bad worst-case for a creature with a powerful but situational passive ability. I still like ScOoze when the meta calls for it, and that's way worse at what it does than Ouphe is at it's job. So yeah, There's no doubt that this is a really strong toolbox piece for the deck.

Been really enjoying the Neoform line. It's a great backup situationally to fish for a win condition. I used it the other day to sac a wall of blossoms or something (memory fail) just to pull for recruiter and go down the normal line, great backup to fish for it even if you don't have the rec ahead of time.

Yeah, same! and when the new London Mulliagn goes live and I shave a few lands (and add the Hprizon ones) I think it'll be a perfect replacement for Kiri. It may cost a single mana more, but it better uses the decks resources in the form of creature mana and pain/limited-use lands like Gemstone.

Well I mean I used Neoform to pull for the Kiri line. It's fairly situational. Are you thinking about dropping the Kiri line completely and what are you anticipating running in it's place if so?

The "Neoform Line" im referring to is:

• Animar on 2
• Recruiter fetching Metamorph
• Meta copying Recruiter, fetching Spellseeker (this step is optional, but saves you mana)
• Seeker fetching Neo
• Neo the seeker into Statue, bouncing itself
• Statue a million times bouncing itself
• Statue bouncing Meta (you can bounce recruiter here if you skipped meta earlier)
• Meta copying recruiter for Ballista (here's where having meta saves you the 1 mana)
• Ballista to win

This basically replaces Kiri as a 1-card win in my current list (update coming soon, i promise) and it has a few major benefits:

• mana can come from anywhweere, not just painless U dual lands. this is a HUGE upside, bc being land-gated in such a dork-heavy deck feels bad.
• no need to run mediocre duals like filters/checks/speeds anymore, and we can freely add the new Horizon lands without worrying about them being "dead" when we want to combo.
• No need to run Peregrine Drake nor Kiri herself. Both have niche applications in the deck outside combo (drake moreso, obv, since Kiri is just a bad Man-o-War) but were pretty "dead" slots when deckbuilding, and undesirable draws when playing. I'd rather run more protection or speed here.

The downside to cutting kiri is that all our wins now focus on Statue and, to some extent, on Ballista. This may be a dealbreaker to some players, but I've never really had an issue with it. the amount of exiling-removal in my meta is vanishingly small, and the same is increasingly true of cEDH in general. I wouldn't recommend going all-in on Statue if your meta is full of Swords effects, but I really havent noticed a downside.

So basically I'm anticipating being able to cut 1-2 mediocre slots and add in a few solid utility pieces. Right now i'm liking Stormtamer and Rishkar, but The Ouphe is a fantastic card for this deck too. I may find a way to slot him in since a new Scepter deck just popped up in my meta. With the new land-freedon, I may even want to add GSZ+Arbor back in to get Ouphe other hate-pieces online faster. Longer term, with the London mulligan in effect, I'll prob shave a land or two (would be much harder with Kiri in the deck!) and add a few more hate pieces, since combos will only be getting better!

I promise I'll have a formal update to the list and the combos published soon; i've been swamped with end-of-year teaching/degree responsibilities and haven't had as much time to test as usual. the deck has been running really smooth for the last few weeks tho, so I'll have it written up shortly!

Domri, Anarch of Bolas Didn't make it into the list?

Doesn't Collector Ouphe stop our own Walking Ballista from being able to shoot our opponents? The Ouphe is useful for interrupting a number of other decks, but is that benefit worth having to find a way to remove the Ouphe from the board before being able to combo off?

Domri: The uncounterable ability is nice, but that effect is way better when you can tutor it, hence Serp and Gaea's Herald.

Ouphe: You usually want to bounce him on the last statue cast. This does leave your Statue on the battlefield, but it's a relatively niche case and the benefit of being able to shut down a ton of wincons/fast mana is way greater. Some people like Manglehorn for the deck, and I see Ouphe as a pretty sizeable upgrade. Worst case scenerio, we can kill him with Cratermaker.

Any concern about the neoform line being more vulnerable to counterspells such as Flusterstorm, Negate and Swan Song to name a few?

Neo itself is more vulnerable to "noncreature" counters, but the line is not really any fewer casts otherwise. We play enough counterspells to make that work IMO, and since these bigger lines are really best later in the game once we've set up, i think its pretty easy to protect. If you're often playing against mono-U tho, you may need to work hard to protect your plays!

As an experiment I've been running an Animar list that includes the Neoform line, the Kiri-Onna line, Weird Harvest , and the Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker combo just to see which line pulled its weight the most. Despite the excess bloat in the deck list I think that it is a testament to how strong the core of an Animar deck is that the deck can still goldfish turn 4 kills at least 70% of the time. The Neoform line has simply proven to be the most accessible line for me a majority of the time, allowing me to combo off for about 80% of my potential kills in testing. Kiki and Weird Harvest each contributed about 10% to the times where I comboed off. Kiri never really proved to be a relevant play due to all the other lines being easier to assemble.

So yeah, the Neoform line is more susceptible to a wider range of counterspells than Animar's combos have normally had to contend with in previous versions of the deck, but the line is such a boon to the deck's consistency that it is worth the cost of running Phyrexian Metamorph as part of the 99 to accommodate it. You would want to play Neoform as part of the 99 anyway since it is such a good tutor. I've always had the Metamorph as part of my list because I like the options it offers, so for me even that isn't an issue.

My experience, having played all the lines at different times, has been qualitatively similar to yours. Neo is just the best 1-card win we've had access to in a log time. Kiki was the last one that worked as cleanly with the decks other lines, but it had some very real issues.

I will say though, you may be able to get more use out of Harvest. Especially with Seeker and Mystical tutor giving us two paths to Harvest itself, I've found it surprisingly easy to use. I'd say my wins have been roughly evenly divided between Neoform, Harvest and just raw statue+Ballista via either topdeck or individually tutoring them. Harvest does need some extra green mana (its usually a 4 mana play to win, 6 if you want to fetch and cast Gaea's Herald, 7 if you want Serp) BUT thats very possible by mid games, especially if you have Cradle/Crop Rotation. Perhaps the 3=5 slots you get back by shaving Kiri and the Kiki pieces will go towards making this combo smoother?

I think that the wide disparity between how often I combo off with Neoform VS Weird Harvest comes from mostly from a mana cost perspective when I'm looking to combo off. There are more lines of play on turn 4 where Neoform is viable at 2CMC but Weird Harvest would require me to wait one more turn. Keep in mind that these stats come from me mostly just goldfishing, not actual games, so I'm always going for the fastest route to victory instead of having to work around board states. I also run Trinket Mage in my deck so Neoform has even more to work with, since either Trinket Mage + Neoform or Imperial Recruiter + Neoform tutors both Walking Ballista and Ancestral Statue to hand, so having Neoform in hand has that slightly higher chance of leading to a win. I've honestly been a lot happier with Trinket Mage in the deck since Neoform came around. I play it over the Loyal Drake that a lot of people like to run.

I'm also stubbornly holding on to the Kiki package in my deck for the time being. In the games that I do get to play the deck against other people I often get targeted down because people know that killing Animar often means they've reduced the chance of one of their opponents comboing off for at least a couple of turns for the cost of just one removal spell. Having the Kiki combo as an option in the deck gives me a way of potentially comboing off out of nowhere when my opponents are expecting me to have to take at least one turn to recast Animar and get some counters on him. Neoform has also helped make Kiki a little more viable as well since I generally get Kiki out using either Eldritch Evolution or Neoform to get it from my deck instead of having to cast it.

Yeah, Kiki is a very viable option when you're facing a lot of hate for Animar himself. I still like the combo a lot, and consider it totally playable given the right meta conditions.

Trinket is a very good inclusion, and it's been something i'd like to work back into the deck for a while. I like your idea to use Trinket and Neo together a lot too. I'll have to find a slot for the guy.

What do you think of Force of Negation???