Tiny Leaders - Animar for the Rogue Deck Builder's monthy/bi-monthly competition. Rogue Deck Builder is an extremely knowledgeable Blog page and YouTube Channel for all things MTG. This month's competition: Build a Tiny Leaders deck around Animar, Soul of Elements!
Tagline: "I don't like common logic, which is why I didn't run Tarmogoyf or Snapcaster Mage..."
(PSST! Check out the budget version here: Rogue Deck Builder - Animar On a Budget)
Why is this deck the best?
First, its fun. And I mean FUN. Second, its extremely effective. Third, it exploits Animar to no end, and without him none of this would work. And it does this without using "cute" tactics like "Oh man! If I just draw these 3 cards in my 49 card singleton deck every game I can make Animar infinitely big!" or "Look at all these artifacts that do basically nothing for me that I can put out for free!" or "If I just put all of the hydras in a deck, Animar will win me games on his own, right?" This deck focuses on strategy over trick tactics, and synergy over combos. The results are impressive.
But is it innovative? Yes. Innovation is taking ideas that exist and making them better. A common thought for Animar is Affinity, another thought is Hydras, another would be Morph. But control? And controlling your own army? Now we are talking. Anyone who has played long enough has Path to Exiled their own creature to fix their mana base. Lets run with that idea. Keeping just enough Hydras and not playing all of them we have a solid win-con for the deck. Keeping only the most fitting of the Myr (affinity with Animar is hard with a 3 CMC ceiling) we have a solid beater in Myr Superion. And abusing morph mechanics to pump those hydras to ridiculous early game levels? Now we have innovation! Keep the morph tactics to ones that support our goals, or disrupt the opponents, and we finally have a solid deck idea.
After going up against 4 other decks lead by Anax and Cymede,
Zo-Zu the Punisher
, Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant, and even an Animar, Soul of Elements mirror and winning all 4 match ups (after multiple failures and continuous losses in development leading up to these 4 match ups), I feel this deck is tuned enough for its unveiling.
THE TECH:
The strategy, and the main board:
Get Animar, Soul of Elements out as quickly as possible, then get to 3 counters as quickly as possible using strategic creature bouncing of your own army through Unsummon,
Call to Heel
,
Force Away
,
Hubris
, Vapor Snag, or Snap; or the creature based Quickling,
Echo Tracer
, or
Icefeather Aven
. Once 3 counters are there, most of the deck has morph, so start playing critters for free. Once there are enough counters on Animar, play a hydra and start swinging for the win.
The Animar "bounce engine" comes online at turn 4, or turn 3 if Birds of Paradise is in the opening hand. After that its only a matter of time, and usually not much of it. The bounce effects are also a utility to be able to re-use the ETB triggers and morph abilities of the rest of the deck. Rather than simply Unsummoning your own creatures to cast them again, first morph
Jeering Instigator
, steal something fun. Then Unsummon the Instigator and do it again!
All of the critters in here's abilities were chosen for their effectiveness in the Tiny Leaders format.
There is nothing more fun (or annoying) than having your general stolen with
Jeering Instigator
or
Riptide Entrancer
, especially since the latter is permanent.
Apocalypse Hydra
, Hooded Hydra, Primordial Hydra,
Nimbus Swimmer
, Savageborn Hydra are the hydra win-cons of the deck. If they aren't big enough for the long game when you summon them, bounce them back and beef them up. Myr Superion is another beater that can usually be played by turn 4 if in the opening hand with 2 counters on Animar.
Pyreheart Wolf coupled with any number of hydras is often times a game winner. Its an undying
Madcap Skills
that you can't get 2-for-1'd on.
Birds of Paradise is there for the potential turn 2 Animar. Otherwise, its a hydra pumper and the quintessential "Don't leave home without it" for green.
Disruptive Pitmage
, Mana Leak, Reclamation Sage and
Voidmage Apprentice
, are for some additional control. The sideboard has the rest of the control that should be needed if necessary, but in such a creature heavy format the bounce effects are usually enough. A little trouble with burn. Vendilion Clique is also part of the control package, though its more on the disruption side.
Curiosity, and Rhystic Study are for that "stall out" phase that Tiny Leaders can sometimes get after turn 8 or 9.
Propaganda is just waaay to broken. So good. I mean broken. Completely. Play this card. srsly.
Temur Ascendancy is there for the haste and the card draw. Its not uncommon to have a 4/4+ on the battlefield by the time this card will be cast.
Sylvan Tutor and
Wordly Tutor
- The best tutors for the deck. Since the morphlings do much of the heavy lifting as far as spells goes, these two are here to help that process.
The uncertainties:
Equilibrium
might be too "cute" rather than effective. Time will tell.
Voidmage Apprentice
may have too high of a morph cost to be effective. Raging Ravine may be better off as Sulfur Falls. Having the extra blue mana would help stabilize the disruption/control mana base, which is the main event of the deck.
Equilibrium
may simply be better as a 17th land. Without testing this at length over time, there's just no knowing for sure.
EDIT:
Equilibrium
has been replaced by Sylvan Library. Missing this one originally was a huge oversight on my part since I run it in my Junk EDH deck and know how good it is.
The mana base: The mana base is THE MOST important part of building a deck. At the outset this deck was running 16 lands. Running 16 lands because a land is a dead draw after there are 5 or so on the battlefield. I'm not a big fan of land when I don't need it, so I run lean and statistically I will mulligan to 6 cards roughly 27.2% of the time, to 5 cards roughly 10.2% of the time, and to 4 cards roughly 1.3% of the time. These numbers are based on a simulation that I ran millions of iterations on. The article that I got the basis for the analysis and the original code from is on Channel Fireball. If you are interested in the modifications I made to calculate mulligan percentages or have any other questions let me know. A 1/100 mulligan to 4 is okay with me in casual if it means that I'm running optimally otherwise, and hasn't been a problem for this deck.
Additionally, the trouble areas for lands are Vendilion Clique, Hooded Hydra, and
Equilibrium
due to their double single color casting costs. In order to have a >90% chance of having the right mana available for these cards by turn 3 I would need to be running 13 green and 13 blue sources. That is not a luxury that can be afforded in this deck. At 10 sources for blue and 11 for green (counting Opal Palace and Birds of Paradise as a half source each), there is about a 75.2% chance that I'll have the mana available for
Equilibrium
and Vendilion Clique, and an 81% chance that it will be available for Hooded Hydra. This is favorable, but not perfect, and may lead to
Equilibrium
turning into Sulfur Falls.
The Sideboard:
Beast Within, Krosan Grip,
Shatter
are all there because I hate all of the Sword of Color-ism and OtherColor-ism. There are other artifacts that are painful, too, but those have proven to be the worst.
Counterspell, Remand are there for additional control if needed.
Pyroblast is there for the Red Deck Wins archetype translated into Tiny Leaders.
Skullcrack,
Mizzium Mortars
and
Lightning Strike
are there for additional removal if needed.
Wasteland is there just in case. There are some really annoying lands out there, but the mana base is too important to mainboard the slot. This goes against all common logic, I know. But I don't like common logic, which is why I didn't run Tarmogoyf or Snapcaster Mage, since they just don't fit here.
Current chopping block order (cards that will get cut if something better comes to my attention):1.
Equilibrium
, 2.
Voidmage Apprentice
, 3. Vendilion Clique
This list is based on prohibitive casting cost vs. effectiveness, however Hooded Hydra is not on this list because it is a win-con card.
Any and all suggestions are welcome. And remember to check out Rogue Deck Builder's Blog page and YouTube Channel for all kinds of great deck tech and MTG exploits. At the time of this writing there is a hilarious video of a turn 2 Kiln Fiend win. Awesome!
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