@Gidgetimer I have all of those save the 'Mutt. I've considered them, but I do have some other big Eldrazi and critters. I'd rather not raise my curve, unless you've found that I can cast then with ease in this build? Would more Morph critters be beneficial, especially considering Cloudstone Curio?

The ease at which you can cast large colorless creatures is going to depend on how long you are able to keep Animar alive. I have been able to cast Blightsteel for free in my Animar deck, but that is when I was able to have him survive 3 turns and had 5 counters on him at the start of the turn.

I'm not a huge fan of too many morph creatures since Animar doesn't reduce the cost to flip them, but I also don't have cloudstone and so am not abusing the fact that they can easily cast for free and add counters for pseudo ramp.

Love the name. I'm a huge fan of Jimi +1

You could maybe use some artifact rocks for mana (signets, etc.) but it's not necessary. Deck looks pretty good as a whole, but I'm not fond of Chromeshell Crab. Seems like more of a gimmick than actually good if you're really trying to win with this. I'd stick in Spellbreaker Behemoth over it.

Bruh you need Clever Impersonator UU- copy anything you want plus counter for animar :D

This is why I love you guys! Spank you!

Am I missing something or is there a reason you're not abusing the hell out of Deadeye Navigator in here??

Haxxzor I may end up adding Deadeye. I don't wanna get too combo for my playgroup just yet lol.

Every time anyone at my playgroup plays Deadeye, they pretty much just win or become an instant target. Doesn't mean I won't play it though, it's amazing in any deck that has blue and a bunch of creatures. XD

My favorites are:
Deadeye Navigator + Draining Whelk
or
Deadeye Navigator + Eternal Witness + Time Warp

Mine would probably be Deadeye Navigator + Sage of Hours + Sandsteppe Mastodon

I took out Chromeshell Crab for Thousand Winds ATM. It seems like a decent tempo play and a Morph critter, which I like due to Cloudstone Curio.

Any other good Morph critters I'm missing?

Scornful Egotist, of course!

Now you must wear pants on fire!

That goes against everything I believe in, man.

But in all seriousness, Den Protector is pretty good. Especially because why morph, when you can megamorph, am I right?

True that!

Solid Deck, +1!

Thanks Hero!

What I love about Animar is just how flexible of a commander it is. Decks can be built in many ways and it is a load of fun. Here's my suggestions for ya:

Sunken Hope - Not sure what your meta is like but this may actually backfire on occasion. Enter the battlefield effects are popular and giving your opponents a chance to re-use theirs can potentially be bad. Of course if they don't have any it can slow them down as well so this really just depends on the play group. If you're looking for a creature version that is just for you then Roaring Primadox and Species Gorger are that kind of effect.

Kruphix, God of Horizons - I see people put this in their Animar decks decently often and it doesn't offer as much as it would normally. This is because Animar devalues colorless mana so having a bunch of colorless mana in the mana pool does less for you. Also usually you'll be permanent heavy using a lot of creatures so you'll tend to reserve less in hand, meaning the unlimited hand size is also less valuable. That being said, if you run a bunch of creatures that use X in cost then it's still pretty nice.

Root Elemental is weak in Animar. While coming down often for free as a morph, paying 7 mana to put a creature card into play is often way more expensive then what you would have paid for that creature anyways. There's also the added negative that since you didn't cast the creature it doesn't even put a counter on Animar.

I feel the bounce type creatures do very well with Animar. They can always target themselves if you need to build up counters on Animar and it will trigger the many effects to draw cards as well such with Soul of the Harvest etc etc. They work well for bouncing back other creatures of yours that have good enter the battlefield effects to get extra uses out of them as well. Not to mention the uses of bouncing threats. Here is a few more of these creatures in case you wanted to enhance the count: Man-o'-War - AEthersnipe - Venser, Shaper Savant - Quickling - Dream Stalker

I'm always a fan of card draw and I've found that Myojin of Seeing Winds is amazing with Animar. It's often quite normal to see 7+ counters and so being able to case this creature for three blue and draw often somewhere between 5-20 cards is awesome.

As a deck that hinges heavily on the commander here is a couple good creatures that work well to defend it: Spellskite - Elgaud Shieldmate

I personally made my Animar deck more of a control deck myself, but for the big creature approach here is a couple: Thunderfoot Baloth - Tyrant's Familiar

The reason I went more control is because creature based decks tend to be vulnerable to board wipes so I opt to protect it with counterspells that are rolled into creatures such as Glen Elendra Archmage and some others. Although this depends on your meta and how often you have to deal with this.

If you're looking for other ideas or just want to compare feel free to check out my Animar deck Animarvelous

Charge Thank you kindly for your feedback!

With Sunken Hope I was indeed looking for a repeatable way to bounce critters back to my hand each turn. It does give a lulz factor. I may replace it with Species Gorger.

Kruphix has done some amazing work, allowing me to store colorless mana for my instants, Morph triggers, and so forth. Plus, I find myself drawing a butt load of cards with this deck, so not having to discard is nice lol. It's worked out well, so far.

Root Elemental is decent tech, and a Morph critter. It may be a place holder, ATM.

As for your other suggestions, I'll definitely take it into account. Again, much thanks for the feedback and upvote!

Leyline of Anticipation could help putting out combo pieces on someone's end step. Tooth and Nail can help fetch two combo pieces at once.

Jank combo of Djinn Illuminatus + Pact of the Titan + Burst of Speed (or any haste engine). Though if someone fogs your combo turns from game ending to suicide.

I like Leyline, thanks! I thought I put Tooth and Nail in, as I have one and meant to at least...

While the Djinn combo is interesting, I don't like the suicide aspect lol.

In any case, what should I take out for Kiki-Jiki, Craterhoof Behemoth, Pestermite, and Deceiver Exarch? And is Splinter Twin worth considering?

If you pull out all other inatants/sorceries you could put a Primal Surge in for the game winning combo play also add a teferi, mage of (can't remember the last word) to protect the combo.

Cards I don't like in here: Ondu Giant, Prime Speaker Zegana, Sagu Mauler, Species Gorger, Stratus Dancer, and one of each Basic.

Ondu Giant is Cute, especially win Animar, but at four mana, getting One basic that enters tapped isn't worth it, and it's not really all the great in the best case scenario of costing only 'G'. Skyshroud Claim put the forests into play untapped, and Explosive Vegetation lets you get two basic lands for the same cost, before Animar's reduction.

Prime Speaker Zegana is really colour dense. Animar reduces her cost by at best 2, and her Card draw effect is kind of mediocre unless you already have something else huge in play. It's probably more of a personal preference thing, but I think there are better card draw engines in the deck.

Sagu Mauler is 'mearly' a dumb and hard to kill beater, which Animar is better at being, and you have other beaters in here that make him a tad superfluous.

Species Gorger is just too slow for that effect, and he only does it once a turn.

Stratus Dancer is average, but having one counter in you deck isn't fantastic, and this one is narrow at that.

Cards I don't really like but I'm sure are solid: Surrak Dragonclaw, Yavimaya Elder, Gilded Lotus, Garruk's Horde, and Dream Stalker.

Surrak is also really colour dense, and unlike Wanderer, he doesn't really have a huge impact when he lands, but he is solid value, and I can see keeping him in.

Yavimaya Elder puts the lands into your hand, so he's good colour-fixing, but he's not really a great card for Ramping proper.

Another personal preference thing in Gilded Lotus, I'm not really a fan of artifacts that tap for less than they cost, and at five mana this usually won't do very much for Animar who makes things really cheap anyway. However, I know it has a huge cult following, and is really good in the average game of commander, but I'm used to super cut-throat games where it's just too slow to be useful.

Garruk's Horde is nice, and gives a really solid draw engine, but unlike the cards that let you actually draw, he just stops working if you hit a mana pocket or something.

Dream Stalker is worse than both Shrieking Drake, who costs 1 on his own, and Man-O'-War, who can bounce an opponent's thing. It's good to have a little redundancy, but there are better ways to acquire that. Also, with enough counters Ancestral Statue is pretty much a one card combo for Animar.

Cards that would be good, but aren't in the maybe board//mentioned once already: Survival of the Fittest, Genesis, Dack Fayden, Mulldrifter, Brutalizer Exarch.

Survival lets you find all the creature combo pieces you could every want, and all it asks in return is a few cards you probably weren't planning to use anyway. Admittedly, that drawback can start to add up, but Genesis helps mitigate it.

'Everyone' has artifacts, and Dack lets you take them. He also helps you card filter, though his Ult isn't always useful.

Mulldrifter is good value in general, but drawing 2 cards for U is fantastic when it works.

Brutalizer Exarch is a cheap creature tutor, and when you want to combo out, having more tutors is always better.

High end cards that you can strive towards but aren't necessarily. Imperial Recruiter, he grabs every card in the Kiki combo, as well as grabbing various other utility creatures. Mana Crypt 2 Mana for free is pretty good, and the drawback is mitigated often by winning the game. The Duals, Yeah, everyone suggests these for higher level play, but they are worth noting. Gaea's Cradle Taps for 4 plus mana in these sorts of decks, that gets stupid fast.

You can take a look at my Animar list if you want, though it's deff geared to a very competitive meta.

Animar, the Angry Uncle

Commander / EDH nayrash5

SCORE: 5 | 1398 VIEWS | IN 2 FOLDERS

@nayrash5 Excellent feedback, thank you!!! Yeah, Giant is a bit weak, but the ramp is nice. He may make the cut. You have a point about Zegana as well, but I like the thought of blinking her with Deadeye Navigator. She may make the chopping block, though. I also don't want to cut a potentially good source of card draw. I dunno... You may be right about Species Gorger. The idea of having a way to bounce a critter back to my hand every turn is rather nice to keep counters on Animar. It may be a weak choice, though, as you've made other suggestions.

The Morph critters I like because of Cloudstone Curio and Tidespout Tyrant. That is, with Animar at 3 counters they become free and he then becomes infinitely large. Also nice as a way to win with Purphoros, God of the Forge on the board. If there are better options for Morph critters, I'm open for suggestions.

As for your next point, I like Mulldrifter and Brutalizer Exarch, and own both lol! The other cards I like and have worked well. Plus there's a control player in my group, so Surrak does work.

The super high end cards that I don't have, I probably won't get, but Mana Crypt is a sweet card. I may look into that one. Same for Survival of the Fittest, as it works well with Squee, Goblin Nabob.

Funny, as I saved your list to my folder a few days ago lol! I dig it and it's super competitive, not quite the level of my group, though. If your and Epoch's deck are Tier One competitive playgroups, mine would be like a 1.5 or so.