Bond Beetle

Creature — Insect

When Bond Beetle enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.

Discussion (50)

Caerwyn on What counts as a Spell ...

2 months ago

Please remember to link your cards with double brackets:

[[Gargos, Vicious Watcher]]

Gargos, Vicious Watcher

A spell is any card that is on the stack. Gargos cares about spells that specifically target it. So, that’s targeted instants ( Lightning Bolt ), targeted sorceries ( Grapeshot ), and Aura spells, which always target when they are a spell.

For your specific examples:

• Equipment spells do not target. They resolve, then have an equip ability that allows it to attach to a creature. At that point, it is no longer a spell, so does not implicate Gargos.

• Bond Beetle , Sacred Armory , and Scrounging Bandar - It their abilities that target, not a spell.

• Constellation does not necessarily target, it’s an ability word serving as a reminder that some effect will occur regarding enchantments entering the battlefield. Even if the ability targets, it will always be the ability, not a spell.

• Bestow - bestow means you are casting the card as an aura spell. As such, a card cast for its bestow cost would be a targeted spell, and would implicate Gargos.

SaberTech on Animar, Storming Soul

5 months ago

JMCraig was pretty thorough with his suggestions, so I probably don't have much to add.

Just to clarify, judging by the banned list your shop goes by I'm assuming that you play 1v1 duel commander, not 4 person pod games, right? Which format you are playing in is an important bit of info because there are significantly different meta considerations to make between the two formats.

As baseline suggestions for right now, I agree with JMCraig's suggestions that you need to include all of the 1 mana dork elves because they are important for increasing your chances of getting Animar out turn 2, but they are also one of the signature advantages that green has in Duel Commander. In a format where the best artifact ramp has been taken away from other colors, green's natural ability to ramp itself is one of its best assets.

I also agree that if you are running Kiki, you should also include Pestermite to increase the combo's consistency. With the inclusion of the mana elves and Pestermite it may be worth looking at running Priest of Titania as well.

In regards to Bond Beetle , I'm going to copy and paste a comment that I wrote elsewhere:

"In general, the way I find Animar usually plays out is that you want to ramp turn 1, cast Animar turn two, spend turn 3 casting two or three creatures to get counters on Animar but you run out of mana, then on turn 4 you are set up to potentially combo off. The power of Bond Beetle is that if you cast it as your first creature on turn 3 and have both a 3 CMC tutor creature, along with something else you can cast for free like Cloud of Faeries or Phyrexian Revoker, that should leave you with 2 available mana and 4 counters on Animar, which is potentially enough to win on turn 3 instead of turn 4 if you are lucky."

Honestly though, I'm not very knowledgeable about the current state of the duel commander meta. I remember that Red became a lot more viable when the life total was dropped to 20, but since your shop uses 30 life I'm not sure how much Red shows up. Red's burn spells and cheap board sweepers are a real problem for Animar since it gets around Animar's protection from White and Black, which normally keeps it safe from most spot removal in the usual cEDH format. If Red is an issue at your store, it may require some alternative design decisions to help you get the best out of Animar.

beardumbra on Pir and Toothy's Simic Adventure

7 months ago

Klazen: As Foretold is now on my radar for sure. While it does take some time to get going, this represents an interactive instant with, say, just 2 counters, during other players turns, let alone casting free things with more counters. This is probably among the best 3-CMC mana sources for this kind of strategy and might actually be better than Astral Cornucopia.

Give / Take is another card I have looked at but am not totally sold on. Take is the obviously exciting side, which would be used with Toothy most of the time, triggering Toothy with the draws to replace all the counters almost immediately. However, Give (or fusing Give with Take) is a little underwhelming for three extra mana, however, as there are better spells for distributing counters. Crucially, the effect of Take on Toothy can be replicated (for instance with Repudiate / Replicate itself) simply by cloning Toothy. If this were another Simic +1/+1 counters deck, I could justify including Give / Take, but this particular interaction between Toothy and clones means that I would rather have the flexibility of a clone instead of a narrower card such as this.

TheNocholas: Yes! War of the Spark (with proliferate and loyalty counters abound) could be even better for this particular deck than Ravnica Allegiance was. Already I want to play with Merfolk Skydiver , Neoform , Karn's Bastion , and the Landfall -- Proliferate elf, and some other cards, including the planeswalkers, are good candidates as well. Looking forward to seeing what else is announced for this set.

channelfireball12345: I do notice this card whenever I am looking for a cut. Bond Beetle is a good suggestion, and as I was looking into getting one, WAR is already providing a strictly better Ironshell in "Pollenbright Druid" (and the even spicier Merfolk Skydiver at the same CMC). Another alternative is Elvish Visionary or the new Fblthp, the Lost if I'm finding the main purpose of the beetle is to put the counter on Toothy. The reason I included this card is because Ironshell Beetle's original printing was in the first magic deck I ever owned, given to me as a gift, and I happened to collect the card in this deck at a GRN draft. The beetle will definitely be cut for something from WAR once it drops.

channelfireball12345 on Pir and Toothy's Simic Adventure

8 months ago

Bond Beetle is probably better than Ironshell Beetle for what it's worth, though I find them both to be rather weak in EDH.

Jaecen on Animar, Sec

9 months ago

Card Categorization

I've categorized the cards in your deck here: https://deckstats.net/decks/50753/1215572-animar

The following analysis is based on that categorization. Several cards are in more than one category, so I've categorized them based on their primary or common case. E.g. Ancient Animus is both "Removal" and "+1/+1 Counter Interaction", but you're going to cast it to kill something -- the +1/+1 counter is a nice bonus.

Strategy

There's no explicit or stated goals of the deck, so I can't evaluate the cards against that. If you have a goal, let me know.

The core effect of Animar is to play creatures, which grows Animar. As Animar grows, he helps you play more (and more expensive) creatures. Some notable limitations:

• Animar only decreases colorless costs
• Animar only cares about creatures
• Animar only cares about casting creatures

Animar is cheap to cast and protects himself from most removal (due to his protection from Black and White). Because of this, we can assume that we will get him out early and keep him out long enough for him to provide benefit. We'll build the deck assuming Animar is on the battlefield at all times.

Since Animar reduces the colorless component of creature costs, we'll get the biggest benefit from colorless creatures. As with any unlimited cost reduction effect, we should look for ways to break the free case. The obvious one here is to bounce and recast colorless creatures for free.

Since we're playing all of these (hopefully free) creatures, Animar will grow quickly. Giving Animar good evasion will give us to win on commander damage quickly.

To best abuse Animar, we want:

• Many creatures across a range of mid to high colorless costs
• As many of those creatures in our hand as possible
• An many +1/+1 counters on Animar as soon as possible
• A means to make Animar unblockable

The easiest way to break Animar is to create an engine that casts colorless creatures and bounces them to your hand as many times as possible during a turn. We'll want ETB/LTB effects on those creatures and cards that care about creatures entering and leaving the battlefield. Additionally, we'll want cards that care about +1/+1 counters on a creature.

Favor creatures over non-creatures, as you get a discount on creatures. Try to keep colored costs to a minimum - avoid double or more colors in a cost.

Abusable Colorless Creatures:

• Myr Battlesphere creates four Myr tokens
• Precursor Golem creates two 3/3 tokens
• Artisan of Kozilek reanimates a creature
• Duplicant exiles a creature
• Anodet Lurker and Peace Strider gain three life
• Electrostatic Pummeler and Multiform Wonder give three engergy
• Reservoir Walker gains three life and gives three enery
• Grim Poppet gives three -1/-1 counters to put on something
• Meteor Golem destroys something
• Mirror Golem exiles a card from a graveyard
• Pierce Strider drains three life from an opponent
• Skyscanner draws a card
• Mindless Automaton draws a card via a +1/+1 counter interaction
• Solemn Simulacrum tutors a basic land into play
• Thought-Knot Seer can effectively mill and oppenent with ETB and LTB triggers
• Triskelion deals damage via a +1/+1 counter interaction
• Workhorse grants colorless mana via a +1/+1 counter interaction
• Oblivion Sower steals lands from your opponents deck

Repeatable Bounce:

• Ancestral Statue
• Equilibrium
• Guardians of Koilos
• Cloudstone Curio
• Temur Sabertooth

Synergies:

• Panharmonicon !!!
• Cream of the Crop
• Decoction Module
• Impact Tremors
• Leyline of Vitality
• Hardened Scales
• Simic Ascendancy
• Path of Discovery
• Warstorm Surge
• Wild Pair

Unblockable Enablers:

• Herald of Secret Streams
• Thassa, God of the Sea
• Whispersilk Cloak
• Protective Bubble
• Aqueous Form
• Keeper of Keys
• Key to the City
• Passwall Adept
• Rogue's Passage
• Aether Tunnel
• Cloak of Mists
• Suspicious Bookcase
• Marchesa's Smuggler
• Tricks of the Trade

We'll want to get as many creatures down as quickly as we can. Card draw and other card advantage effects are valuable.

Draw/Card Advantage:

• Vizier of the Menagerie
• Sunbird's Invocation
• Stolen Strategy
• Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
• Garruk's Horde
• Descendants' Path
• Elvish Visionary
• Mulldrifter
• Fierce Empath
• Wall of Blossoms

Changes to the Existing Cards

I would consider cutting way down on the amount of ramp. Mana dorks get the deck running early, but they don't have any synergy with the core effects. I suspect that's what was leaving you feeling like you had a dead hand.

Cards that seem particularly problematic:

• Wild Cantor . Requires a sac for effect. Doesn't get cost reduction. A dork that taps for mana would be better.
• Tinder Wall . Same as Wild Cantor sans the cost reduction bit.
• Vivid Creek and Vivid Crag . These both ETB tapped, don't have basic land types, and only provide off-color mana twice. If would strongly consider running Amonkhet cycling duals over these.
• Ancient Ziggurat . Be careful, as this mana can only be used for casting creature spells. I don't like this land in most decks.
• Bond Beetle . I have no idea why this is in here. It works once and has very little synergy with the deck. Verdurous Gearhulk would be better, but still not great.
• Green Sun's Zenith . I think a cheaper card that tutored to hand and then let you cast the card would be better, as you'd get the cost reduction effect and other synergies. No cards come to mind, but there are lots that look at the top X cards and tutor to hand ( Gift of the Gargantuan , etc.).

SaberTech on Ancestral Animar

1 year ago

Yeah, that one mana makes a big difference. I get why they would choose to go with Ironshell Beetle though, a bear that can boost something else later in the game is a bit more useful overall than the Bond Beetle version.

SynergyBuild on Ancestral Animar

1 year ago

I play with more stax/control then combo, so I may have a scewed veiw on this, but I only mentioned cards you sounded like you wanted, not ones I specifically thought were strictly better than ones in the deck.

To be entirely honest, If they do print a few more cards like Mulldrifter, Bond Beetle, and Birds of Paradise. You know, like 2-3 of each, then this deck could be a sweet storm build, going off faster than many Grixis Storm lists.

SaberTech on Ancestral Animar

1 year ago

@JMCraig When you say that the Oracle nets you 3-4 cards the turn it enters, is that just cards being filtered off the top of your library or is that the count of cards that you are also casting from exile that turn?

@SynergyBuild I think that, for me, it's a tough call between a new Bond Beetle or a new Mulldrifter (assuming the new Mulldrifter could also be cast for 3-4 mana without Animar's reduction). But considering that we have just been given Dark-Dweller Oracle for more draw power, I think that I lean more towards another Bond Beetle to help increase the chances of more explosive turn 3 plays.