Animar, Surge of Value

Commander / EDH* RUG (Temur)

mookie990

Land (35)

• 1x Blighted Woodland
• 1x Botanical Sanctum
• 1x Cinder Glade
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 6x Forest
• 1x Frontier Bivouac
• 1x Game Trail
• 1x Gruul Turf
• 1x Hinterland Harbor
• 5x Island
• 1x Izzet Boilerworks
• 1x Mosswort Bridge
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Opal Palace
• 1x Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
• 1x Rootbound Crag
• 1x Rugged Highlands
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Sulfur Falls
• 1x Temple of Abandon
• 1x Temple of Mystery
• 1x Thornwood Falls
• 1x Vivid Grove
• 1x Yavimaya Coast

Utility (5)

• 1x Chancellor of the Spires
• 1x Diluvian Primordial
• 1x Genesis Hydra
• 1x Phantasmal Image
• 1x Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir

Recursion (4)

• 1x Artisan of Kozilek
• 1x Den Protector
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Greenwarden of Murasa

Draw (21)

• 1x Beast Whisperer
• 1x Edric, Spymaster of Trest
• 1x Elvish Visionary
• 1x Etherium-Horn Sorcerer
• 1x Evolutionary Leap
• 1x Fathom Mage
• 1x Generous Patron
• 1x Guardian Project
• 1x Hydroid Krasis
• 1x Maelstrom Wanderer
• 1x Mulldrifter
• 1x Primal Surge
• 1x Raven Familiar
• 1x Runic Armasaur
• 1x Sandstone Oracle
• 1x Sea Gate Oracle
• 1x Slithermuse
• 1x Soul of the Harvest
• 1x Sphinx of Uthuun
• 1x Tireless Tracker
• 1x Ulvenwald Mysteries

Interaction (12)

• 1x Ainok Survivalist
• 1x Bane of Progress
• 1x Champion of Lambholt
• 1x Phyrexian Ingester
• 1x Possibility Storm
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Stratus Dancer
• 1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
• 1x Void Winnower
• 1x Willbender

Commander (1)

Ramp (13)

• 1x Beastcaller Savant
• 1x Cryptolith Rite
• 1x Farhaven Elf
• 1x Hardened Scales
• 1x Nikya of the Old Ways
• 1x Oblivion Sower
• 1x Peregrine Drake
• 1x Rattleclaw Mystic
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Sylvan Caryatid
• 1x Sylvan Ranger
• 1x Wall of Roots
• 1x Wood Elves

Bounce (6)

• 1x Ancestral Statue
• 1x Cloudstone Curio
• 1x Dream Stalker
• 1x Shrieking Drake
• 1x Temur Sabertooth
• 1x Words of Wind

Tutor (3)

• 1x Birthing Pod
• 1x Fierce Empath
• 1x Woodland Bellower

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archetypes: aggro/combo

deck motto: #YOLO

An Animar, Soul of Elements Primal Surge deck. The deck is built to play lots of creatures, draw lots of cards, and flood the board with threats. Resolving Primal Surge should win on the spot, it's not the primary wincon. Typical gamestate consists of Animar with some counters on him, and me tapping out to play as many creatures as possible. Being almost entirely creatures means the deck has some glaring weaknesses, but the goal is to put a fast enough clock on my opponents that they don't come up. This deck is not set up to win the long game - when it gets going, it's terrifying to behold... but if an opponent wraths, the tempo loss means I won't be able to do anything relevant again for at least three turns (one to cast Animar, and another to start building up counters again)

Gameplan:

early game: T3 Animar is goal number one. After that, play cheap creatures to build up counters as fast as possible.

midgame: use Animar's cost reduction ability to play discount fatties, then commence the beatdown. get a Glimpse of Nature effect online so I can turn creatures into cards and flood the board.

lategame: bash face with large creatures, combo out for a +big/+huge Animar (or just have him grow to massive size naturally - can easily grow to a 10/10 or larger in just a few turns), and pray my opponents don't topdeck a wrath.

Issues:

-general dependence. Two of the best protections means that Animar is hard to kill by commonly-run removal spells. But being a 1/1 means he dies easily to burn, and bounce/wraths also reset the counters. The deck simply can't afford to cast Animar over and over, because rebuilding the counters is a massive tempo loss. I'd love to say that all the creatures in the deck are worth their mana cost... but honestly, it's often not even possible to cast them without Animar's discount, and certainly not more than one per turn.

-card draw. the deck functions in two different modes depending on whether or not I have a card draw engine online. If I do, then I'll be tapping out every turn to dump as many creatures as I can. If I don't, then I'll be topdecking very quickly.

-wraths. When half the deck is creatures, and I can't run any mass recursion effects, losing my entire board hurts a lot. simultaneously, I can't really run any wraths to deal with my opponents' stuff. Creature removal in general is sort of difficult to come by.

Sidenotes:

-the deck functions fine on having a low number of lands.... as long as Animar is online. still want to try to hit all my land drops though, because my activity each turn is ultimately limited by how much mana I can generate.

-deck is almost entirely blue/green, with only a little red. I don't really play a lot of red in general, but I would like to get some more red cards in the deck and balance it out a bit more.

-deck familiarity is fairly important due to the presence of both Wild Pair and Birthing Pod , plus a few creature-based tutors. Current tutor target #1 is probably Ancestral Statue , but I'd love to hunt down a Peregrine Drake /other combo pieces.

-sort of hilarious how the curve works out. In other decks, a 7 or 8 drop is a finisher that you can't afford to run more than one or two of. You expect it to be powerful enough to win you the game on its own, and you'll generally spend your entire turn to cast it. In this deck? Typical turn 5/6 plays, often coming in multiples, and often expendable - you have plenty more where they come from.

Date added	9 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 47 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 13 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	4.03
Tokens	Clue, Human Soldier 1/1 W, Morph 2/2 C
Folders	EDH