My two favorite color combinations in commander are Simic and Izzet, so I felt it absolutely necessary to find a commander that fit them well though edging more towards the Simic side of things with some efficient red thrown in there (I could care less about Gruul).
This is pretty standard affair for Animar, though slightly cheaper than those that run Earthcraft and Food Chain. That said, it still has incredibly effective combos and explosive turns that will leave everyone at the table going "Wait, what the hell happened?" if they take their eyes off you for even a second.
1) Animar, Premier BFF--One of the biggest strengths--and drawbacks--of this deck is its dependence on Animar, Soul of Elements. He's great at dodging targeted removal from white and black (more on that later), but the 1 toughness really hurts when other players are running even the most basic of burn spells. I've seen some decks play heavily into Swiftfoot Boots or Lightning Greaves but if you set up your turns correctly, he should be able to stick around for a while.
And WHY do we want him to stick around? He makes all your spells stupidly cheap, of course!
Farhaven Elf, Man-o'-War, Priest of Urabrask and Grinning Ignus are the best ways to get things going, with Ancestral Statue becoming free once you get big A up to 4 +1/+1's. Bouncing around your creatures and generating mana to play more for cheap is the best way to get Animar rumbling in his elemental bellyparts. Once that starts happening, utilize Fauna Shaman to discard any irrelevant creatures and start comboing off, or just finding the relevant thing for the relevant situation. By making Animar huge you get to cast Artisan of Kozilek and Steel Hellkite for free, or do stupid things with Maelstrom Wanderer (note you're casting things with cascade). What do you do with all the extra mana you'll have from unused lands, you say? Why not dump it all into Kruphix, God of Horizons! Use that to get a beefy and game ending Lightning Serpent or Curse of the Swine or Bonfire of the Damned.
2) Animar, Soul of Combos--I briefly mentioned comboing off while you get started, something which is super easy to do utilizing Cloudstone Curio and Aluren (note that Equilibrium also works great and can even clear boards, but you do have to pay for it). Basically by having any two three drop or lower creatures, you can continuously cast and recast them with and make Animar infinitely huge using the above-mentioned artifact / enchantment combination. Creatures can also find cute ways to do this, though usually you'll have to pay colored mana (also note that Cloudstone doesn't let you bounce artifacts). The best way to do this is using Ancestral Statue and Man-o'-War as "bounce" creatures and bouncing mana generators like Priest and Ignus (this was mentioned briefly above in point 1). Cloud of Faeries, Peregrine Drake and Palinchron also generate infinite Animar counters and infinite mana once you start paying their costs for free, with the latter being the most effective. Animar and 'Chron have a long history of devoted friendship and game-breaking. Other abusive ETB effects include Dragonlord Atarka, Artisan of Kozilek, Acidic Slime, Phyrexian Ingester and Maelstrom Wanderer (note that you cannot go infinite with a lot of these, as they need colored mana to keep replaying).
3) Animar, the Fragile Element--Animar is your most important combo piece in the entire deck by far, acting as a win-con on multiple fronts (What? He's at 2 Billion counters and doesn't have trample? Hello Nylea, God of the Hunt). I mentioned briefly that he has a weird balance of delicate and resistive--white and black players can't do jack in terms of targeted removal, and you'll often be hitting them with as much commander damage as you can, but burn and bounce pose real threats to our growing baby soul. Since the deck wants to be creature heavy, counterspells have been limited to creatures and prove to be incredibly effective--Draining Whelk, Mystic Snake and Venser, Shaper Savant are all super effective at stopping targeted removal and can bounce eachother with Cloudstone / Aluren combo in place, giving you a nearly inexhuastible number of counterspells. Boardwipes are still awful to deal with, especially Supreme Verdict, and Stalking Vengeance is supposed to help mitigate some of that by dealing craptons of damage to anyone who boardwipes into graveyard (Merciless Eviction obviously can't be dealt with effectively outside of counterspells). Vexing Shusher is in place to try and stop other counterspells from hitting your relevant stuff, and Plaxmanta can help protect a board against targeted removal if you don't have Asceticism out.
4) Anidraw, Soul of Cards--Since so much of Animar revolves around finding specific parts and pieces, draw is important. Fathom Mage, Mulldrifter, Prime Speaker Zegana, Garruk's Packleader, Primordial Sage are all excellent ways to generate cards, especially when combined with the blink effect from Deadeye Navigator (see: any relevant ETB effects. Deadeye is bonkers in EDH). Brutalizer Exarch and Fauna Shaman also go a long way in getting there, as well as the incredible Momir Vig, Simic Visionary.
5) Win--Anyone who's played against Animar in EDH knows how awful it can get; durdle for a few turns then suddenly you're board is flooded and you're swinging with a 2m/2m lavarockwater. He will get targeted, removed, countered, and boardwipes will occur every two or three passes once the game goes long. The most important thing about Animar is planning ahead: do I want to cast him now or do I want to build a board presence to protect him? What combos can I assemble with these pieces? Who's the biggest / has the biggest threat on the board? By thinking carefully ahead you'll always be a fighting force at the table and, with practice and tweaking (I always encourage individual personalization with decks--I know this is certainly a far shoot from the "perfect" Animar deck but it's the one I have the most fun with), you can pilot the elements with your eyes closed.
Veni, Vidi, Vixi,
~Z
