There are a few issues with kiki, but by far the biggest is that number of bulky, low-utility cards you have to add to make it work. Sure you can use the typical suite of combo tutors to fetch the pieces as needed, but why not just tutor up Statue instead, bc Animar should already be there waiting? Honestly the deck doesnt need any more combos, least of all ones that require 2-4 dead cards and multiple tutors to assemble. The color requirements aren't really the worst part with a good manabase, but sure dont help either.

Now, that said, we DO run the Hoverguard line as our "big", late game blowout finisher, but the difference is that all you need to add to the deck is the Guard itself, which is a surprisingly useful creature in a lot of non-combo value lines (double down on ETB-draw effects; inf mana with Drake, etc).

Symbiote is a very cool card that i'm certainly not opposed to running by any means. It can do some very busted stuff. That said, it does require some nontrivial setup to be optimal (elf to bounce and something good to untap), and many of the elves in the deck want to tap for mana, so getting around summoning sickness can be awkward sometimes. I like the guy, but my reason for leaving him out was ultimately that he's just a bit too finicky and while his ceiling is pretty high, the usual lines he enables are generally non-combo, mediocre value plays. I'm def never opposed to trying out a synergistic 1CMC role-player tho, so give it a shot! you may have more luck than i did!

What creatures do you Normally pick with green suns? Because you can only get green creatures.

Thats why i dont run it!

I appreciate the responses that you've given thus far, so I just want to check if you are fine with me dropping a bunch more comments and questions here. I've been looking for a place to get other people's opinions on competitive Animar, and the closest I found up until this point were some Reddit threads that were already pretty old.

And just for the record, I don't get offended if someone doesn't like one of my ideas or suggestions. I know that the policy of veering more to overly polite phrasing helps keep conflicts to a minimum on community sites like this one but I'm perfectly fine with frank responses. I do plan on leaving a number of posts and questions if you are up for it, so I understand if you might only have the time to give short replies.

Yeah man, no prob. Im often pretty upbeat on here bc i just like playing and discussing Animar, but i wont feel the need to sugar-coat anything. Fire away!

Thanks. So, what's your thoughts regarding only running 30 lands in the post-Paris mulligan environment? Animar is one of the few commanders that can get away with it, but doesn't it add more risk to a deck that is already a bit of a glass cannon? I was testing the list and I had to mulligan down to 5 cards for about half of my opening hands due to lack of lands, and then restarting because I still had no lands.

I guess that I should state that I have horrible luck with draws, particularly with TappedOut's play test program, so it may well be that my experience is a statistical outlier. How often does the deck mana-screw you during games and testing?

I was on 32 for a whole, but in testing Leo and Zur I found 30 perfectly functional in fast combo. Tried it here and was quite pleased. The number of rocks and 1CMC dorks, plus the super color-rich manabase often get me there even off a poor mulligan. And for what it's worth, with all the redundant pieces, mulliganong isn't the worth thing.

Trying to add another land or two couldn't hurt tho. I guess I'm just greedy.

My current list runs 32 lands. I was running 33 but I found that there were a number of games where I was drawing more lands than I wanted to. My deck plays 12 basic lands, and despite that I can't say that I have many issues getting the colors I need. Considering how many basics I play, I've toyed with the idea of running Magus of the Moon in my deck to cripple decks like the Hermit Druid combo decks that are seeing a bit of a revival thanks to Flash Hulk now being legal in commander. Considering the number of mana dorks and cheap mana rocks that are played in cEDH decks though, I'm not confident that the Magus would have as big an impact as I hope it would.

I've seriously considered including Bane of Progress though. I generally don't expect Animar to stay on the board long in a competitive group game since multiple opponents means a higher likelihood of someone playing a quick Chain of Vapor, Cyclonic Rift, or Toxic Deluge. Bane of Progress would give Animar a bit of a reset button if it falls behind, cleaning out opponents' mana rocks, card drawing enchantments, and artifact combo pieces. I don't have much tournament experience under my belt so I'm not sure how useful it would be overall. Your deck runs more artifacts and enchantments than mine currently does, so that would probably be a deciding factor.

I find basics in general make openers hard to keep in a deck that's already not super easy to mulligan with. I can always fetch into a basic when I see earthcraft.

Bane is a good card and I could prob justify playing it but the CMC is off putting, combined with the liklihood of eating my stuff when I'm behind. 6cmc is a lot for a bail out card. Def a good meta pick tho.

My list only has 1 creature at 6 mana, and then the two eldrazi at 10 mana, so fitting another 6 cost creature is still an option for me. Everything else is at 5 mana or less. I cut a lot of my higher costing cards out after the mulligan change because my opening hands suddenly became a lot more awkward with the higher-cost creatures. It's gotten to the point where Fierce Empath is in my hand and the only real target for it is one of the eldrazi, which half the time I would be unable to cast at that moment. I'm going to look at putting Soul of the Harvest back in as backup to Primordial Sage with the next re-tooling of my deck.

Reading through the Recruiter/Hoverguard line that you have posted, wouldn't you need one of the or lands to also be able to produce for the chain to go infinite? With just 3 lands you can loop the Hoverguard and Drake for infinite counters on Animar, but you would only be stockpiling and mana, so you wouldn't be able to switch to bouncing the Hoverguard and one of your tutor creatures to draw other cards out of your deck. Is your description missing a step? If you bounce the Metamorph and the Drake With Hoverguard, then you can cast Metamorph as a copy of Hoverguard for the purposes of the chain. That would net you with each cycle instead of just .

The mana gain is basically incidental here, but yeah it wouldn't make blue unless one of those RG sources is a blue dual. BunBunFriedRice has a really nice write-up in the Primer with even more detail on that line. Basically you just need enough to get your combo piece tho, so making extra blue is usually redundant. In fact, one of the main things ive learned is that people focus on making too much mana in Animar, when in fact you never need almost any bc the deck is so good at making things cheap.

As a point of order, I'd also highly recommend adding Brutalizer. It's an Empath target than then fetches anything else in the deck, which dramatically improves the utility of the former. Assuming you shaved Kozi over 2lamog (ive considered it too) id still strongly consider adding the other Enchantress creature as well; theyre solid value even without the combo setup, and obviously a win-con when you DO have statue. it never hurts to have some insurance to prevent running out of gas.

So after racking enough counters on Animar with the Hoverguard combo, I'm guessing that you just bounce back Metamorph, copy Imperial Recruiter again, then tutor and cast Walking Ballista for the win? That's the simplest line I can currently think of to kill multiple opponents in one turn.

And yeah, I've been looking at Brutalizer Exarch. It's sending me on a bit of a nostalgia trip, because I had included it back in my first version of my Animar deck.

Mad World Rising is my current Animar list, but there are a number of cards that are due to be replaced. Bloodbraid Elf, Venser, Shaper Savant, and Slithermuse only occasionally give me the value I would like from them, and Duplicant is a recent addition that I'm still not sold on. Brainstorm has done good work for me but may not be worth including now that I finally have a Sylvan Library for the deck. Priest of Titania is another recent inclusion that I'm second-guessing. I'm going to keep the Kiki-jiki package for the now because Pestermite and Deceiver Exarch have integrated themselves into how I like to pilot the deck.

So if you are up for giving me some suggestions; lets say I freed up 6 slots in my deck by removing the cards I mentioned above, based on your experience what would be your top six recommended cards that I should include that I don't already have?

Yep, Metamorph into Ballista is the usual play. But of course you can also use Hoverguard (if you made U mana) to scoop up the Recruiter and Empath repeatedly then recast them and tutor up the whole deck (Brutalizer helps here). You've got as many options as you need!

Here are a few great cards I'd add. Since the deck can be pretty fragile, i'll focus on interactive pieces, the best of which ive spent a long time testing and collecting here

• Pact of Negation: free combo protection; one of the few playable noncreatures
• Force of will: ditto
• Spellskite: red, burn-based and blue, bounce removal are super annoying for Animar, and this guy handles both perfectly. and hes free
• Fabricate: gets both halves of your combo now. great when followed up with EWitt or Den Pro
• Phyrexian Revoker: another free form of interaction that takes a dump on many top decks
• Scavenging Ooze: again, really fantastic anti-meta pick

These plus the swaps you malready planned should give you a fighting chance against a lot of good decks.

Thanks for the suggestions. Most of those are cards that I was looking to include, but I was trying to decide between adding the utility package you listed above or improve my ramp and card draw. I used to have the Pact and FoW in the deck, but they got cut over time because I hated getting them in my opening hand. FoW in particular frustrated me because I only ever seemed to have another blue card to ditch to it about 1/3 of the time that it was in my hand. Most of my play testing was 1v1 against fast decks like Jenara and nooze combo Mimeoplasm, so a lot of cards that didn't offer me immediate value in the first 3 turns ended up on the chopping block.

I really should have had Spellskite and Scavenging Ooze in the deck a long time ago, particularly the Ooze, but my only copies were locked up in other decks until recently.

I may hold off on the FoW for now and put in Soul of the Harvest to give my main combos more consistency. I also want to give Rishkar, Peema Renegade a try, since he plays well with both Animar and Wirewood Symbiote. How well has Rishkar worked out for you in your deck?

Rish is a fantastic addition to the deck. He can easily add 3 dorks to the board all for 1 CMC (himself, another spent-ETB creature, and Animar) and there are a fair number of useful synergies already in the deck like Ooze, Glen, Wall of Roots and Ballista. and he's surprisingly flexible too, so there's almost never a bad time to cast him. Highly recommended.

It's kind of cute how Rishkar works with Glen. I hadn't mentally registered the fact that Rishkar lets a creature with any type of counter on it tap for mana, so the -1/-1 counter Glen gets from Persist counts as well. I'll have to remember that for other deck ideas. And then of course Rishkar can also reset Glen if need be.

JMCraig, if I have not thank you before, I want to now for this thread.

If you were to go back to 32 lands, which lands would you add and what would you cut?

Glad you've found this useful! To get down to 30 I cut Groveof the Burnwillows (totally painless but unfetchable dusl) and Dryad Arbor (doesn't give Animar a counter, has summoning sickness, BUT is a fetchable body which can be useful sometimes).

Notably I had been running GSZ for the turn-1 ramp with Arbor. Ultimately I found this play a little limiting on colors (Arbor only taps for green, reducing the number of lands that still enable a t2 Animar). Further, Zenith was a little disappointing late game when it essentially serves as another copy of the best Dork at the moment, but costs full CMC+1. Not great. Fetching Fauna Shaman is solid but the summoning sickness makes this a multi-turn, mana heavy play. Better tutors exist!

So, knowing all this, what lands would I add back? You have a few options.

More gold lands - the easiest way to ensure good mana early game, when this de k needs it more than almost any other. The only one I'm not running that I might want to would be tainted Citadel. 3 life isn't so bad since we're not on Naus or anything. Notably thran quarry is too punishing with wipes, and forbidden Orchard gives them a blocker for Animar, cutting of our Plan B. A good gold land goes a long way to smoothing your mulligans out.

Grove: it's a good dual. I like it.

Basics: I don't like these. Basically kills many openers. We run just enough to set up Earthcraft lines with good tutoring. I could see one more forest tho.

Utility lands: we have gamble and Crop Rotation. Still, you def want to keep as many colored sources as possible. Pass.

Filters: really wanted these to work. Just too mana intensive for a deck that's already very susceptible to mana issues. Utterly crap turn 1 too, so they'll hurt mulligans.

My pick: Fastlands! I'd cut the Gemstone Mine (super cool and pretty damn good, but def the worst gold land) and add a full set of these. Alternately, just run the Green pair and keep Gemstone (I'm a sucker for full cycles tho).

Good luck with it!

What would you cut to go from 30 to 32 lands? My guess for one of the cuts is Gamble.

I'm actually quite fond of Gamble, but I know not everyone would agree.

I'd suggest assessing your meta and cutting the least relevant toolbox/hate card from among Revoker, Gilded, Scooze and maybe skite. These guys are super strong in very narrow ways, and you may not be able to get the most use of them if your meta differs from mine.

The second cut would prob just be Crop Rotation, but I could see doing Gamble too, if it really bugs you (again tho, sometimes it's just plain fantastic, and it does something the deck otherwise can't do for only 1CMC).

Thanks, I just went with Gamble as a guess because Bunbunfriedrice did not have it. I know the milage you get out of it varies depending on the deck. Phyrexian Revoker, Scavaging Ooze and Force of Will were also omitted from his/her list.

Force of Will has been in my Animar list from the beginning and it is not going anywhere. I would cut Pact of Negation before Force. Force at least gives you the potential to get Animar through that first counter and the early spot removal or board wipe. I assume Pact of Negation is used primarily (<75%) during combo.

I guess Phyrexian Revoker and Scavaging Ooze are the cuts if your meta will allow it. Gamble for one or the other if it does not.

Yup, I personally love Gamble, but its one of a few minor differences BunBun and I consistently maintain in our lists. bit of a preference pick, ultimately. I too wouldn't dream of cutting Force, FWIW.

The toolboxy stuff I recommended looking into is def the best area to make personal/meta tweaks. Animar doesn't always have the best or fastest tools to fight the meta, but with some astute observation and smart play you can pack a very solid toolbox. Feel free to float me some popular decks in the meta and we can brainstorm solutions/cuts/additions.

I've often thought of adding Cryptolith Rite to turn all those utility creatures who's effects youve used into more usable coloured mana. Do you think that's a viable option?

I find Earthcraft does this better as long as you're smart with your fetching. The reason I don't want the redundancy though is that these lines require a little work to set up and ultimately don't move us closer to winning. We can accelerate a little mana or board presence but ultimately I'd rather spend tutors (many of which can't actually get enchants) on mainline combo pieces than Earthcraft-able creatures. Earthcraft still earned a spot by having unique combo wins unlike Crypto and playing the mana generation game a little better, but I wouldn't bother with Crypto. There's only so much room in the deck for non-combo, non-creature cards, and I'd rather use this slot for either anti-meta toolbox pieces or just draw/tutor stuff.

I'd be curious to see if you've tested it tho!

I agree that Animar wants Earthcraft over Cryptolith Rite, the combo potential and the ability to utilize creatures with summoning sickness just makes Earthcraft the better choice.

However, I can see Cryptolith Rite going into a more Good Stuff Animar build. The ability to produce any color of mana would be useful if you are running cards like Sower of Temptation or Zealous Conscripts, which would give you the opportunity to utilize the abilities on your opponents' permanents. That build may be not as viable a strategy in cEDH due to being slower than Combo Animar, but if you are building for a more "Pub Stomp" or "75%" meta I can see it working out.