Swords/Path: def get saved up for statue or another vital creature combo piece, so misstep is a great answer there.

Earthcraft: there's no good tutor for it in the list, so its mostly a facultative wincon/accelerant. The fetches are usually more than enough, but you can always tutor wood elves to grab a basic that way too, so all the creature tutors work for you.

Force/Pact: saved my ass a million times. You have to play a little cautiously, but they'll protect a win and stop some other deck from going off so i cant complain. Dont be afraid to hardcast Force later in the game!

The comp meta: at my store, yeah. its not bad enough that i'd run 1-2 CMC counters, but i'll take all the good free ones. I play against Kess Tide, Blood Pood (fucking Gryff!!), Gitrog, Thras+Tymna Hulk and Zur on the regular, and they'll all force a counterspell early and often. Usually the more controlling decks in the pod hold shit down while the fast combos try to win, but there have been times when I've needed an emergency Counter or Caterpillar to take care of something. Better to be prepared!

Other Stax decks: absolutely agree. I love watching ehtersworn cannonist come down against Kess, for example. Similarly, when playing animar, you'll notice a ton of great cards say "non-creature", which is just pure value for you. A good stax guy can tweak his build to shut you down, but with two other combo decks at the table and who knows how many in the meta, dedicated animar-hate sometimes takes a cut. I still really like our position in the meta. Not a top pick, but a strong linear combo deck that tends to fly under the radar. Like a slightly weaker gitrog with better answers.

Yea, I was going to hold out and keep the extra land but you are making a strong case for Mental Misstep. In a meta without Zur, would Gilded Drake be a cut? I potentially have Tazri Food Chain, Selvala Brostorm, Sidisi Blood Tyrant (Reanimator/Foodchain/Hulk), Breakfast Hulk and Animar in my meta.

I think Phyrexian Revoker and Scavenging Ooze are too strong against Sidisi and Breakfast Hulk to cut.

Is there something else in your list you would cut to keep Gilded Drake if you were going to 31 lands?

I wouldnt run 31 lands, honestly, unless i was shaving duals for budget reasons. I like 30 but could see 29 honestly. they're totally dead after animar is cast since so many of our creatures make mana and ultimately everything we do should be super cheap.

All that said, Drake and Revoker are the meta calls in the list. I like both, even in your meta, since both are very strong against several of the decks you listed. The Siren Stormtamer is prob the weakest card in my list, and swapping in misstep does a similar job but often cheaper. Still, my pick is the land.

Thanks for all the advice. It looks like the land is the cut. I saw where Bunfriedrice is also playing Mental Misstep.

Yup, that dude knows his stuff!

JMCraig, I am an idiot. It was Alarmednine's list that had Mental Misstep. I looked at both lists last night and made a mistake.

Hopefully, the fact that I have been promoting your list as the definitive Combo Animar keeps me in your good graces.

hahaha, all good dude. Theirs were the three lists in the primer, and they're all great Animar builders and players. I'd gladly suggest trying out any of their tech!

Going back to your comment about Siren Stormtamer being the weakest card in the list, wouldn't Sylvan Safekeeper be a better card for that slot? It also only costs 1 mana to cast, serves the same purpose, doesn't require a mana to activate, and you are likely only going to need it on the turn you are trying to combo off for the win, so sacrificing your tapped lands isn't likely to be that big of an issue. It is also able to protect multiple cards in a turn.

The only issue I could see is if the Safekeeper giving shroud to a creature interfered with a combo, which could be an issue if you are comboing with Cloudstone Curio, but 3 out of your 4 combo bounce creatures don't need to target themselves to return to your hand so I think that in most of your combo situations it shouldn't be a problem.

Yeah I like Sylvan a lot. I've tested him a few times with generally positive results. I personally like Stormtamer here bc he can protect me from a few things like Aetherflux and not eating a land can make it easier to rebuild if I get blown out. Ultimately, which of the two you use (if not both) is def a matter of preference/meta. no wrong pick between the two.

I'm not sure how much I like Sylvan. On one side it is "free", it might be ok with Excavator. I also agree with the point that once animar comes down lands don't really matter. Letting us sandbag extra lands for a rebuild.

Th reason I dont like it is because I have mostly played the deck w/o Statue due to LGS league. So lands are a premium since I mostly lean on the Recruiter line.

Not to spam, but is Vizier pulling it's weight for you?

Hey dude!

Sylvan - yeah without statue to protect and with the need to rebuild lands fast he loses utility. Still may be usefuyl in a the no-limits build. I'll test him out soon.

Viz - still liking this guy. the hand "stretching" is very real, even if the mana fixing is pretty redundant. being able to check top, cast what you find, fetch to shuffle, then cast the top card again is very common and very powerful. 1CMC Future Sight does a lot to dig the deck out of a rut when youre not drawing what you want. the synergy with Worldly/Sylvan tutors is just a bonus! I think the deck's main weakness is effective draw power, and this guy helps a lot.

I played a game recently where the the Vizier, with a little help from some shuffle effects, let me play eight creatures off the top of my library in one turn. I'm pretty happy with it in my deck.

@JMCraig Have you had an opportunity to test Dire Fleet Daredevil in Animar? My LGS isn't competitive enough for it to prove its full value, so I was wondering what your view on it currently is.

It's a pass from me, unfortunately. I was really hoping i could consistently steal Vampiric Tutors and stuff, but it ended up totally dead in too many early hands to really be worth the slot. it can be a ton of value in long games, but even then you have to hope you can steal something affordable and useful, which isnt a guarantee.

So: insanely High ceiling, but also sadly a pretty low floor. It's singy and fun, but I prefer something more consistent.

That sounds about in line with my initial evaluation of the card when I saw it previewed. I was hoping that, in practice, it would prove more useful than that though. Thank you for the info.

Same. I saw the preview and thought it would just be so cool if it ever went off, but sadly prob would just be dead in the most crucial part of the game. That was exactly what happened. Oh well!

What is your opinion on heroic intervention?

Heroic Intervention: over costed (you never want to hold up 2 mana) and doesn't protect against some of the better removal like Toxic Deluge. I'd rather play a 1 CMC counter, or even better, a free one. even more budget lists have stuff like Stubborn Denial and Swan Song if they want a cheaper, comparable effect.

Thank you for the info. Im building animar right now and hoping its cool I use your list. Hows your match up against Arcum? Thats the one decknin my meta that always wins

Definitely dude! let me know if there's any way I can help! and steal whatever tech you want!

Against Arcum, your odds depend on the kind of list. Oldschool big artifact fatties Arcum should be easy to beat since you can just outrun them, use artifact hate like Caterpillar/Ainok/Rec Sage/Sylvok Replica etc or just steal the Arcum himself with Drake. I'd def at least include Bane of Progress for tech. If you're up against a modern Paradox build, their speed will be on par with yours, so youll have to rely more on your cheap hate and counters. This build is super linear and easy to disrupt, so even our light control package should be able to buy you enough time to go off.

If you have a list for that deck or anything else you want to tech against, drop a link and we'll work it out!

Sweet thank you! So it is paradox arcum but its more toolboxish than anything. I don't have a list unfortunately he wont give it up. But I do know it runs a lot of hate like torpor orb and ensnaring bridge. Also likes to strip mine lock everyone, Sculpting steel a blightsteel colossus, Make infinite myrs with myr turbine then drop his whole deck on the field, Stuff like that. So what does this race look like? is phyrexian revoker the easiest way to deal with arcum? Thanks for the help by the way.

You definitely want to take care of Arcum himself, since i suspect thats the main enabler he uses. Revoker and Drake are great answers in my list, but you may want to add a few more. I'd try Ulvenwald Tracker and Grim lavamancer. they're a little conditional, but having 1 CMC creatures that are also silver-bullet tech is very strong, since their worst case is still pretty playable.

You may also want extra Torpor Orb hate, depending on how often it comes down. My list runs Caterpillar, Ainok and Ulamog, but you may want to beef that up. other solid options are Sylvok Replica and Nantuko Vigilante. Generic artifact hate like Rec Sage and Bane of Progress could go a long way too.

To make room for ~3-4 of these options, I'd suggest cutting my flex cards like ScOoze, Stormtamer, Misstep, and maybe Kozi. All these have solid roles in the right meta, but can be a little dead in a different one. You can't tech against everything, but if Arcum is far and away the biggest threat, then there's no reaosn not to dedicate up to 5 or so slots to beating him.

Good luck!

Awesome thank you for helping with this I appreciate it and I'm adding your suggestions to the deck! Also how is the flash hulk match up? how do you deal with it?

Depends on the game. They can definitely just win on turn 2 and we're out of luck sometimes. It's undeniably a faster deck. Because it tends to happen at instant spped also, we're limited in our responses. Revoker still does good work here, assuming they cant remove it, as do our few counterspells.

My local flash hulk guy isn't the best player, so I wont claim to be a master of this matchup, but I can usually get a win by waiting to combo second and playing light control. Ideally other people spend resources stopping the faster combo deck, which allows us to win shortly thereafter. They may be faster, but we're pretty fast too, and the fact that our threats are off-meta can help us dodge hate from opponents once they use up their premium answers.

How often would you say you win a game? I've had a hard time in the past finding win ratio records for Animar decks.