You have mentioned in other posts that you built this deck list to compete in a competitive and control heavy multiplayer meta. Animar decks certainly don't like to have to face down lots of board wipe, but with a more combo oriented list like this one it gets a little easier to play around control. Here are some ideas that jump to mind:

1) You'll need to put less emphasis on Animar and more on the independent combos that are in the deck. That way, even if you lose Animar, you can still make potential game-ending plays after a board wipe.

One way you can do this is to add Pestermite and/or Deceiver Exarch to the deck to go along with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Zealous Conscripts. This would improve the chances of being able to combo off with Kiki-Jiki and after a couple counters on Animar both Pestermite and Deceiver Exarch basically act as free creatures that you can use with Cloudstone Curio.

Another card you can add is Deadeye Navigator since it nets you infinite mana with Peregrine Drake and Palinchron. After getting infinite mana you can then make the Navigator flicker itself and soulbond it to another creature like Acidic Slime to destroy all our opponent's lands.

2) Protect your combos. Against control decks you are likely to have to fend off counterspells. Running counterspells yourself is a possible answer but Animar decks like to be proactive so holding back mana can often slow you down and is a less effective option when facing multiple control players at the same time. You already have Vexing Shusher in the deck, but you would probably also benefit from running Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and Surrak Dragonclaw, which can be cast at the end of the opponent's turn so that you are free to cast creatures on your turn without having to worry about them being countered. Glen Elendra Archmage is good for fending off counters and board wipe. It can also be fed twice to Birthing Pod to get both Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Zealous Conscripts out on the same turn, just make sure to get Zealous Conscripts first to untap the Birthing Pod.

3) Whenever you can, you'll want to get Animar out on the second turn. The best way to do that is to have more 1 drop mana producing creatures like Arbor Elf and Elvish Mystic. At the very least, you could probably drop Vexing Devil and Dragonmaster Outcast for more mana producers since they are likely to have minimal impact in the early game when you would really be interested in casting them to boost Animar.

Since you are facing lots of board wipes in your meta, it probably wouldn't hurt to include Sol Ring in your deck. Animar isn't likely to stay on the battlefield for very long and Sol Ring may be the boost you need to either recast Animar or cast your other large creatures without him.

4) As often as possible, you want to have access to one of each mana by the third turn so that you can consistently cast Animar by turn 3 at the latest. Lands that come into play tapped, only produce colourless mana, or are reliant on other cards can be a a real detriment to your mana base when you have as few lands as Animar decks tend to run. Thran Quarry, Reliquary Tower, Raging Ravine, and even Frontier Bivouac can all be potential liabilities when aiming to cast an early Animar. You could try using more basic lands and fetch lands, since that would also improve the viability of Earthcraft.

5) Try to work in more tutor spells where you can. A really good one in Animar is Fierce Empath, which couples with Imperial Recruiter to snag a lot of the important creatures in the deck. Any other tutors that you can fit in just make hitting your combos that much easier.

6) When running a combo focused deck, try to cut down on the number of creatures that are only good for attacking with. The more utility you can get out of your creatures, the better.

I hope that helps a bit.

Wow! Saber you a combo expert. Ok as for changes I made almost all of the changes that you had advised of. I didn't know how to distribute the land so I took a look at the devotion to each color its pretty even so I just gave 1 to each color. As for glen elendra i want to put her in but not sure what to take out in her place. So still thinking that one over. reason i had the tower was for Psychosis Crawler

I think I remember seeing Natural Order and Worldly Tutor in some of your other deck lists? Both would be good inclusions in the deck.

Worldly Tutor is cheap to cast and I have frequently used it to set up my library before casting Maelstrom Wanderer.

Natural Order is able to grab a number of useful creature from your deck depending on the situation. It can get Primordial Sage or Soul of the Harvest if you need cards, Surrak Dragonclaw if you need the trample effect or to stop an important creature from being countered, or Craterhoof Behemoth as a sudden game ender.

Yes, indeed I did have both those creature fetches. I had the mentality of keeping animar mostly critters because everything else doesn't really beef him much. I still need to find room for Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir Fierce Empath but now natural order and worldly tutor need room as well. I thought about putting in Savage Ventmaw good beater with utility Alloy Myr would be a good replacement for perhaps elvish mystic?

heh or even blight steel colosuss

Mana producers that only produce colourless mana are far less useful in an Animar deck because it's the coloured mana that you really need, Sol Ring being a small exception. Elvish Mystic is valuable because it comes down on the first turn and can help you cast Animar on the second turn. Artifact creatures also don't work with Cloudstone Curio. But if you do want an artifact creature that produces mana I would go with Scuttlemutt since it can also change creatures' colours, which can be useful for helping Animar slip past blockers or save Animar from cards like Gilded Drake.

If I was to take out 4 cards from this deck to be replaced, I would probably chose to take out:

Grinning Ignus - You won't need the colourless mana often and you have other cards that are better at bouncing themselves.

Somberwald Sage - Despite the mana it gives you, at 3 mana to cast you are likely to have other cards you would rather cast at that time and Bloom Tender beats it out as the better card for the same roll.

Mercurial Chemister - Having to wait a turn to start drawing cards makes it too slow for its cost to really be competitive. If I wanted more card draw, I would rather go with the extra mana and run Consecrated Sphinx. In this case, replacing it for Natural Order is a good trade off.

Hamletback Goliath - This one is a personal bias. The Goliath doesn't naturally have trample so it is easy to chump block on its own. If it gets stolen it can outgrow Animar and is red so it acts as a good blocker for an opponent to use to stop Animar from attacking them.

Oops, I mistook Alloy Myr for another creature when writing up may comment. The comment about colourless mana producers still applies though, and Scuttlemutt is a straight up improvement over Alloy Myr.

ok Mercurial chemister out for Consecrated SphinxGrinning Ignus out for natural order?Somberwald Sage out for fierce empathHamletback Goliath out for teferi, mage of zhalfir

Sound accurate?

ok Mercurial chemister out for Consecrated SphinxGrinning Ignus out for natural order?Somberwald Sage out for fierce empathHamletback Goliath out for teferi, mage of zhalfir

Sounds good to me. Let me know if you think that the deck has issues when you get a chance to playtest. A number of the creatures require 3 coloured mana in their costs, so that might cause problems depending on how the mana base works out for you.

I ran the list through a couple of playtests. Without anyone trying to interfere with the deck, I was able to combo off for infinite damage on the 6th turn both times. It won't be that easy against real opponents, but not bad overall.

I am liking the play thru!. I seem to mulligan more then the prior decks. Do i need survial of the fittest? Trying to look thru the deck and trim out unneeded expensive cards.. heh saw the price and almost sh*t myself

Ugh, yeah, the price barrier that pops up for building a competitive Animar deck can be brutal. If you think Survival of the Fittest is bad, I guess that you haven't checked the price of Imperial Recruiter yet. I have the $300 dollar version, and I had to trade in a fair number of cards to get it. I have to say though, I think that Imperial Recruiter alone improves the deck by about 30-40%. And the Legacy Dual lands also give the deck a huge boost in mana consistency.

But there's no point in investing that sort of money in a deck if you are not sure that you are going to keep and play for a long time. If you don't want to invest in Imperial Recruiter and Survival of the Fittest then try trading down to some cheaper tutors like Worldly Tutor, Chord of Calling, and Signal the Clans.

yeah i am already 100% cnvinced that imperial recruiter is needed so i'll proxy him for the time being and get the rest. I was able to get a good price on this deck with everything except imperial, misty rain forest for 650 USD. I already have gaea's cradle and a few other cards. I do indeed plan on playing this deck for a loong loooooong time. Hence why I needed to do a shoutout for help on the webs. I am thinking of making the big purchases next month or so. I'd like to send my thanks out to you so if you got a tcgplayer account perhaps I can send something of appreciation for your kindness and helping a noob.

I know you said you don't really play competitive but have you ever seen any competitive EDH? I am trying to stay within the banning list but I see a lot of primeval titans for animar on mtgtop8 is that just french rules?

Yep. There are basically 2 EDH variations: Regular Commander and Duel Commander. In Duel commander you only start with 30 life, all games are 1v1, and there is a different banned list. There are some cards that are allowed in Duel Commander and not in Regular Commander, like Primeval Titan and Upheaval.

Duel Commander are the rules used in a lot 1v1 tournaments, while they tend to use the regular rules for the 4-person pod tournaments.

Duel Commander, because it is faster and only 1v1, has different deck building considerations. They play more like the Commander version of Legacy decks.

When I first built my Animar deck, it was because my friend wanted me to play with him in some local 2-headed Giant EDH tournaments. The people running the tournaments just banned everything that was banned in both Duel and Regular Commander. If you look at my deck, you'll see in the description that I built it to be legal in both formats. The local tournament rules are the reason I did that.

ah gotcha! Yeah I still look at your decks to get some ideas. How long you played?

I've been playing Commander for about 4 or 5 years now I think? It's kind of funny, at first I was completely against it because I love fine-tuning decks and I thought that a 100-card singleton format would make for really inconsistent decks. Now it is pretty much the only format I play.

As for how long I've been playing MtG in general, I started sometime around when the Exodus set came out.

I started when I was a kid back in the early 90s and things happened and I quit for the longest time I started playing just before " the dark " came out. I too still have hooks in legacy and modern. I have a kick arse soul sister deck. For some reason I like to frustrate others with me being the roach of magic =). check out my deck Norin the borin friends named it that. Its a soul sister deck. I have a manaless dredge deck as well that I have done real well with thus far except for that damn GY hate.

According to the announcement that came out today, Commander rules have been changed so that if a Commander would go to it's owner's hand or library it can be put in the Command Zone instead. So basically, you can't tuck Commanders any more. This is a huge boost for Animar, since you no longer have to worry about losing Animar to Hinder, Spell Crumple, or Spin into Myth.

So now the only ways to really deal with Animar are to steal control of it or enchant it with Song of the Dryads. Since every Animar deck should be running Homeward Path anyway, the real threats to Animar have basically been done away with.

Honestly would you bet money on animar vs kaalia? or other cutthroat commanders? My finger is hovering over the buy button lol is why i ask

If you are having second thoughts then hold off on buying the expensive cards and work your way up to them. You'll feel more comfortable about your choices that way.

As for Animar vs Kaalia, I've played with some Kaalia decks but I never had a chance to match my Animar deck off against a fine tuned one. I know the sorts of weaknesses a Kaalia Deck can have and I playtest my Animar against a fast Jenara deck repeatedly. I'm confident in my deck's speed and consistency. I would be willing to put money on my Animar vs Kaalia.

You'll probably find that you'll want to include more answers for Kaalia in your deck though. My build has more answers than your current list does.

what kind of answers? Never mind i'll look at your animar deck. There is a guy in my meta that plays a FAST Jarad combo...you should see this thing.

The fastest that my Animar deck can kill is turn 3. Your list also has a possible turn 3 kill. When I tested my deck the other day I had infinite card draw, infinite mana, and infinite damage turn 4.

I just took another peek a REAL peek at your deck and I said to myself mother &*(%% ... I want to play against you lol. Mainly just to learn a thing or two about a thing or two. I like lotus cobra! I have a playset of those and I could never find a use for that snake.

LoveTime Warp

Looking to see if I can fit something in to accomodate Time warp, Equilibrium, Lotus cobra is going in as we speak I will make room!