Sure, that's undoubtedly true, but if you get to resolve a combo piece and play around with it, you deserve to win anyway.

Does Animar still deserve its 1.5 Tier ranking? It can pull off extremely fast combo wins, but it is heavily reliant on its Commander to do so and it rarely packs more than a few sources of countermagic and interaction to protect its game plan. The printing of Toxic Deluge hurt it, and then the change to Vancouver Mulligan reduced the deck's consistency to a degree that I'm not certain it has managed to recover from. In terms of speed, variants of Flash Hulk combo can win on turn 1, which can outpace Animar. In multiplayer, the overwhelming amount of Blue that is played means that there are a lot more Chain of Vapor, Cyclonic Rift, and Rapid Hybridization at the table that can disrupt Animar if it manages to get past counterspells.

Granted, Ancestral Statue was a huge gain for the deck, and Walking Ballista offers a win-con that is far easier for the deck to tutor for than Purphoros, God of the Forge is.

Would anyone else argue that Animar is currently too much of a glass cannon to hold its tier 1.5 spot?

TheDevicer I think that's a naive way of looking at it. There are plenty of times where people have resolved their pieces and lost due to disruption later on. I don't think it's fair to say you "deserve" anything for simply resolving a piece of a combo. Also, assuming that I need to resolve a combo piece like Engine is largely inaccurate when I have access to things like Whir of Invention and Transmute Artifact to cheat it out and catch people off guard. I think people like to underestimate Azami due to her cost and mono blue identity (which is fair). Whether she belongs in tier 1.5 is not up to me because I will most likely be seen as biased due to her being my primary deck. I also don't believe that Azami is as popular a general in cEDH as you say she is. Perhaps a few years ago pre mulligan change she was popular, but presently I believe she is largely underrepresented in the cEDH community because as you pointed out, there are lots of generals that have stagnated. I haven't seen many lists for Azami that are more than just casual wizard tribal and those that are more than just casual wizard tribal are largely unoptimized. Sorry for the ramblings, just my thoughts.

I started into cEDH with Yisan but then also quickly built Azami as well.

I also know that many people here have played Azami on their way to playing something else as well so TheDevicer isn't wrong there. (At least 3 people in my meta have built/played Azami as well.)

As far as Paradox Engine goes, I feel like Sisay is the ultimate Engine user just because she reads T:win the game (go get engine then every legend after that untaps Sisay to tutor again.) whereas Azami doesn't have the ability to just tutor it out of the blue (har har) so it's not that consistent.

Consistency being the key here I feel like the order of operations is Sisay > all when it comes to Engine combos.

n0bunga I;m not the person that asked but the only real thing I can think of is Palinchron + Cabal Coffers (or some other way to make it net positive or neutral) to exile your entire library winning with Laboratory Maniac. The "opponents not being able to cast" clause provides some minor protection I guess. It's in no way great but probably above tier 5 (Probably tier 4)

Ohthenoises Although don't forget the main wincon in most Azami lists is Mind Over Matter into Laboratory Maniac

HezTheGod Not anymore, MoM is mostly there for a backup line.

SaberTech Animar is comfortably tier 1.5 in my opinion. You lay out some of his main combo cards and problem cards well. The only thing about Animar that you seem to have overlooked in the sheer number of ways he can attain a victory.

Combos with Earthcraft, Palinchron, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Cloudstone Curio, Cloud of Faeries and more PLUS numerous tutors in temur to assemble whatever combo the player is going for make Animar very resilient even after being disrupted.

He definitely has some problems with creature hate (the most common kind of hate in cEDH) but can usually play around it. These problems do bump his consistency down from tier 1 lists who are slightly more consistent and/or fast.

@Ohthenoises I see what you did there. ;)

Human_Wizard - You're misunderstanding me. I'm not claiming Azami is ubiquitous in the format, just that she's a common point of entry into cEDH. As a result, many people have some degree of expertise when it comes to Azami and she remains a pet deck for tons of people.

Also, I phrased my comment about resolving pieces poorly. What I should have said is that for the common engine abusers, getting the engine down somehow and being able to use it without disruption should win you the game. Both Sisay and Arcum win off of one activation in a vacuum. If the opposition hasn't hit your general or the engine, they must be holding some really narrow answers they're gonna disrupt you with. The correct play seems to hit either the commander or the engine depending on what you can do.

I don't have enough experience playing with these lists to say which approach is the best. To me, it seems like Sisay has the best non-combo plan, arcum has the easiest time going off, and azami has the best protection.

Also, I would be remiss in not mentioning that I think Azami ranks below Arcum as well due to, as I said, consistency. However I feel that Arcum is less powerful than Sisay because you have to actually have an artifact creature in play to use Arcum's ability whereas Sisay isn't bound by any such restrictions. You simply have to tap her.

Anyone know when the amonkhet legends will be up? i mightve missed the answer if its in the thread already and i apologize in advance for missing it, but i looked once and didnt see it

TheDevicer Perhaps in your community Azami was a gateway general for lots of people in cEDH, as for mine I'm one of the only people who play or have played her. I wasn't under the impression that many people used her to get into cEDH, but if you claim that a lot of people do use her to get into cEDH I'll take your word for it. As for the "in a vacuum" statement I don't even know where to begin with that. The entire reason that I brought up Azami being a better user of Paradox Engine in some aspects is because cEDH isn't in a vacuum. Most cEDH decks run quite a few answers. Just saying "in a vacuum X or Y happens" is completely irrelevant to the point I was attempting to make. I'm very well aware that Arcum and Sisay can get PE more consistently than Azami, I was just bringing up their worse protection. I'm willing to bet that you were saying that Azami is an "OK" PE general primarily because she lacks the consistency of Arcum or Sisay and that's fine. Personally, I value Azami's protection and combo security and I am of the opinion that not enough people value those traits. Everyone loves to measure decks around their uninterrupted potential because it's easiest to think that way. I like to challenge that idea because cEDH is a far more complex game than slamming combo pieces and winning easily if you have a competent playgroup. That was what I trying to get at.

TLDR: I value Azami's protection and I don't think that speedily acquiring combo pieces is everything.

Human_Wizard It's not just his meta, my meta has seen 6 people at least (including myself) that started with/built Azami early on in their cEDH career and we have a fairly small group, maybe 15-20 people tops. However, that's just the people I know about.

@HezTheGod

True, Animar does have a lot of combo options open to it, but a majority of them are pretty dependent on Animar being in play for them to be game-enders, Splinter Twin/Kiki combos and Deadeye Navigator combos being exceptions. To get the speed that Animar decks are known for though, you usually need Animar out. That's one of the reasons I suggest that its tier rank should be dropped, I was under the impression that being heavily commander dependent bumped a deck down in the ranks according to the tier descriptions.

I'm not certain that having a lot of combo options necessarily translates into resilience against disruption. It give more options, sure, but it's pretty easy for Animar to find itself stuck in top-deck mode after an early board-wipe and having a couple key cards countered. And that's just in 1v1, never-mind in multiplayer where the odds that someone having a piece of counter or instant removal is that much higher.

This is just my opinion, but I see Animar as a proactive deck that relies on combo speed to snag most of its wins. Losing the ability to sculpt its starting hand with Paris mulligan, having to face cheap and easily splashed wraths in the form of Toxic Deluge, and now having to compete against the speed of Flash Hulk combo gives me the impression that Animar is going to suffer even lower win-ratios. I'm just not confident that Animar can currently match the top end of the cEDH meta as well as it used to. It'd love to be wrong on this topic though, since I enjoy piloting Animar decks.

What are your thoughts on how Animar squares up with the rest of the meta?

Athraithe, Give it another month, thegigibeast probably still has finals, and I'm not sure where NarejED has got to.

I'm thinking we might want to talk to gigi about giving editing power to some more people who can be trusted not to change things without consensus. 4 or 5 should probably be enough to ensure everyone who's able to edit won't be away for months at a time.

Is there a limit to the number of additional editors? I would think it would stop at about 3-4.

merrowMania, We can find out. How do you add editors? I'll add you to Partner Pairs Listing.

In the Edit Deck page, go to the Share List, add the user(s), then select "Shared users can edit this deck"

Ahh, I was missing that checkbox. Also it seems like you have to add the person as a friend before you can share a deck with them. (Sidenote: does anyone else think it's weird that friend adding on this site is entirely a one-sided affair? You don't even have to wait for the person to confirm it...)

I seem to have gotten six up no problem, so I think it's unlimited.

I find the friend system as it is to be useful, as you can follow people who inspire you/ are good deckbuilders without them having to care who you are. It also promotes community growth. It's not like you are not notified when someone follows you. This gives you the option of blocking them if they are harassing you.

I would like to contest Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist's Tier 4 status. Giving your opponents cards is bad. The worst part of it is that he allows your opponents to draw cards from their own fetchlands, since he does not look for a mutual opponent. "You lost your Mana Crypt flip? That's okay; have a card at your end step." cEDH decks are built to abuse their life totals, so if all three of your opponents crack a fetch, use a Necro, and/or activate a Talisman, you are competing against three cards with your measily one (assuming you can even damage them with your clunky 1/4).

You don't have to convince me. I was arguing T5 for him from the start.

What's your opinion on solo-Thrasios's standing? Some people were commenting that he might good enough in just Simic colors to move higher, and now that .5 tiers are thing I could see him moving into T1.5. Obviously this would Thrasios+Kydele would move higher as well.

Any thoughts?

I know Moxnix was at one point messing with Thrasios/Kydele, so he may be able to add something to that conversation. (Does he even use TappedOut?)

I think solo Thrasios is well placed in Tier 2 (maybe even 2.5). I do not think it has the consistency nor the speed to make it in 1.5. Hell, even Tasigur is 1.5, and he has Black.

sonnet666: I have been heavily involved in numerous versions of Thrasios (and have even tinkered with double simic), and alone he is just ok. With only simic colors Tasigur is significantly better. I would say tier 2-2.5 is where he belongs on his own. With 4 colors hes a strong contender for top commander overall. Having black and the best of red/white truly makes all the difference in the world tbh.