hey you ever thought about posting a primer on mtgsalvation or doing youtube vid of your games? honestly i would love to be a fly on the wall and watch how you handle animar. I usually go for the combo with imperial grab kiki copy imperial grab zealous=win.

Huh, I never really considered doing a primer. There are more competitive builds for Animar than mine, they probably already have primers. It would be fun to do a video series but I would need to team up with someone because I would suck at giving interesting play by play.

I hate to say it but Imperial Recruiter can't grab Zealous Conscripts, only creatures with power 2 or less. If you had Pestermite in the deck that would work though. I don't think that I've ever tried winning that way, but I don't normally get 4 red mana on the board so I usually combo out a different way. I'll have to keep that combination in mind. Normally when I cast Imperial Recruiter I am looking for either Peregrine Drake or Fierce Empath to tutor up Deadeye Navigator.

How well has Forgotten Ancient worked for you?

Honestly, if its not the first thing stolen IF they can steal it or remove it it absolutly blows up animar or any other creature. Combo this with Hardened Scales its like a poor mans doubling cube. you should jump on cocktrice let me see you play in action =)

What do you think of the changes thus far? I am still play testing thran quarry still comes in immensly useful thus far but i am not forgetting your advice on it.

Bribery looks absolutly a pure joy to steal stuff out of other peoples decks. About Forgotten Ancient I mainly play 4+ player pods so it really adds up. If you only play in 1v1 not a whole lot. Ancestral statue has paid for itself time and time again. I played against another animar deck that had Ugin, the Spirit Dragon that was painful i squeeked out the win but barely. That plainswalker is like a Steel Hellkite on crack!

Bribery is a fun card, but normally it is too slow for competitive play, especially in a group game. No one wants you to get an awesome creature out of their deck for just 5 mana. It was a card that tended to get played a fair bit in my old meta.

Unfortunately, Animar decks typically aim to win through speed, so running high-cost noncreature spells can be a hindrance if you draw them in the early game when you would much rather have creatures. I have to admit, if I was going to replace any of the cards in my deck it would be Time Warp and Tooth and Nail. They have a tenancy of making my starting hands really clunky.

Facing down that Ugin must have been a pain. How early did it hit the board?

He was playing a HEAVY artifact deck. They call it affinity? Anyways he dropped ugin drun 5 he could have dropped him turn 4. He was able to drop all the urza lands really fast. Expedition Map and he just went to town with me. simulacron i think was another artifact he dropped and something that made the artifacts pop back to top of library if they were destroyed.

Huh, that sounds like an interesting build. He got lucky to get all the urza lands that quick though.

I thought it was luck to but the guy did it 3/4 times we played. I finally said ok you got me lol

Who won the most games between the two of you?

he won 3 and i won the 4th. Maybe i need to learn the trick of shuffling or something. Local meta has gotten even more cut throat then ever. My friends its not so bad. I am usually top dog in that aspect. When i go out into the real world OH BOY! I swapped out imperial for momir vig seems like a vast improvement. Don't get me wrong impreial is awesome sauce written all over it!

Ideal hand is 2 lands and a mana ramp to start off with mulligan until i get that generally speaking that is.

Without Imperial Recruiter it's going to be harder to combo off, because it can find 2 key cards for you, Peregrine Drake and Fierce Empath.

There are 2 primary ways that I chain into a combo with Imperial Recruiter depending on how much red mana I have:

1) Imperial Recruiter to find Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, use Kiki-Kiki to copy the recruiter to find Pestermite, which I then cast to untap Kiki-Jiki and combo off.

2) Imperial Recruiter to find Fierce Empath, which I then use to find Deadeye Navigator. After that I use a clone spell like Phyrexian Metamorph to copy the recruiter or I bounce the recruiter back to my hand with a creature like Shrieking Drake. Either way, I get another recruiter to tutor up Peregrine Drake, which I cast to untap my lands. I then cast Deadeye Navigator and soulbond it to Peregrine Drake, use the blink ability to untap my lands and produce infinite mana. Once I have infinite mana I blink the navigator and soulbond it to the empath, blink the empath to tutor for Inferno Titan, cast the titan, blink the navigator and soulbond it to the titan, then just keep blinking the titan and burn all my opponents until they are dead. It sounds really convoluted, but with Animar out I usually pull all of that off in on turn. The only requirement is that you need to be able to produce 3 blue mana with your lands so that you can both cast the navigator and blink the drake on the same turn.

So if you are finding it harder to combo, I suggest putting Imperial Recruiter and Pestermite in your deck.

As for your question regarding Apocalypse Hydra and Polukranos, World Eater, both can do a lot of work for you if you have infinite mana. Polukranos, World Eater is a beefy creature on its own and with lots of mana can act as a board wipe to kill all your opponents' creatures. With infinite mana Apocalypse Hydra can be a backup for Inferno Titan and is searchable with Imperial Recruiter if you don't have access to Fierce Empath to find the titan. As far as combos go, Apocalypse Hydra has more combo potential than Polukranos because it is potentially easier to tutor for and can kill all your opponents in one go instead of just their creatures.

You played around much with Crucible of Worlds or that takes away your combo?

I've played around with Crucible of Worlds in decks, but not in Animar. It doesn't add a whole ton in Animar besides letting you play fetch lands from your graveyard, and my mana base is normally good enough that I don't benefit much from the extra mana fixing.

Another issue is that Strip Mine is banned in Duel Commander, so that just leaves Wasteland that you can use with Crucible of Worlds and Wasteland is pretty expensive. I also don't like the idea of adding any more lands to my deck that only produce colourless mana, since the more I have the greater the chance that I will get a bad opening hand.

However, I have built decks that run Strip Mine, Wasteland, Crucible of Worlds, Life from the Loam and Azusa, Lost but Seeking before. Good times, good times.