Elvish Spirit Guide

Creature — Elf Spirit

Exile this from your hand: Add {G}.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Big Apple Highlander	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Freeform	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
PreDH	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (48)

clayperce on Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald

5 months ago

Roger ... all that ^^ makes total sense.

Also, I had somehow missed the density of "play additional lands" cards in the deck. So yeah, you should be TOTALLY fine on your 7-drops!

If you end up wanting to lean into T1 Ramp, here are some possible cuts. Some HEAVY disclaimers here though: While I can guarantee more T1 Ramp will make for a more consistent T2 Faldorn, I have no idea whatsoever if it would make for a better deck! Especially since we have different playstyles/metas/etc! Anyways, here's some thoughts:

IN: Arbor Elf, Llanowar Elves, Gilded Goose, Wild Growth, Utopia Sprawl, Elvish Spirit Guide, Simian Spirit Guide

OUT:

• Spider Manifestation - If on the T1 Ramp plan, we don't need it anymore.
• Sol Ring - I know it's almost a sacrilege to not include Sol Ring, but doesn't help us get to {1}{R}{G}.
• Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast - GREAT cards and I know you just added them ... and if your meta is filled with Cyclonic RiftGCs they makes a ton of sense. Most of the board wipes I face are Red and White though, and then Black behind that. So these are kinda meh for me.
• Anger - Seems like there are enough discard-to-Exile effects in the deck that I'd be a a bit worried about the set-up.
• Dire Fleet Daredevil - Great card, but sometimes it just won't have a good target.
• Wayward Swordtooth - When it's good it's REALLY good, but it can be a rough topdeck after a board wipe.
• Light Up the Stage and Bigger on the Inside - These were almost my last cuts, so idk. Both look great in the deck, but I think they're maybe the weakest of the 3- and 5-drops (which oc compete directly with Faldorn and then his re-cast), so I put them on the block :-)
• Elven Chorus - My last cut, so idk. I just think it's maybe the weakest of the 4-drops.

//

Thanks much for letting me ramble on about your deck; I'm finding your build really intriguing!

Cheers!

clayperce on Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald

5 months ago

First off, the deck looks VERY solid. So please take these comments as "brainstorming", not "recommendations". But here are a few thoughts:

Multi-pip spells: Maybe take a hard look at Hugs, Grisly Guardian, Etali, Primal Conqueror, and Tlincalli Hunter, just bc multi-pips are always difficult to cast. I love using Salubrius Snail's manabase tool when I'm tweaking decks, and it reports they're not coming down until Turn 6 (for Hugs) or Turn 9 (for Etali and the Hunter) ... and in Bracket 3 that may be too late to make a difference. Of course you have a bunch of spells that allow creatures to tap for mana, but that leads to probably my only real concern for the deck:

Weakness to board-wipes: It may not be an issue in your meta, but it seems like board wipes might be a problem. Maybe add some more protection (e.g., Wrap in Vigor)? And honestly, maybe take out Blasphemous Act?

Ramp: Maybe take a look at either more Ramp (especially 1-drops) or less?

• For a 3-drop Commander, I like going T1 Ramp T2 Commander, which means we want something like 12x sources of T1 Ramp (which--ignoring mulligans--gives us a 66% chance of having it in our opener). Unless we're in a meta where we need protection, in which case I like 11x sources of T1 or T2 Ramp + 10x 1-drop protection spells (for a 67% chance of having one in hand on T3 when we cast our Commander).
  
• Alternately, it might be worth dropping the T1 and T2 Ramp almost entirely, focusing on just being able to go T1 Value Creature, T2 Value Creature, T3 Commander ...
• If you end up wanting to lean into T1 Ramp, I like Arbor Elf, Gilded Goose, Krosan Wayfarer, Llanowar Elves, Springleaf Drum, Utopia Sprawl, Wild Growth, and maybe Simian Spirit Guide and Elvish Spirit Guide. Green Sun's Zenith is great in this role too, allowing us to search for Dryad Arbor on T1. All that is oc a very Green-heavy Ramp package though, so that might make it more difficult to cast some of your current Red 2- and 3-drops ... so again, please treat this all as brainstorming rather than recommendation!

Lands: I'm not a fan of Cinder Glade ... it seems to ALWAYS enter tapped at the most inconvenient times :-D Maybe a Cragcrown Pathway or Fire-Lit Thicket instead?

Final thoughts: Escape to the Wilds, maybe? Raphael, Most Attitude might be good too.

Cheers!

greyninja on Animar & friends!

1 year ago

@SaberTech interesting, Lilysplash Mentor is now in the tcgplayer cart! Cool idea

Other upcoming additions:
- Dour Port-Mage
- Elvish Spirit Guide
- Simian Spirit Guide

Anything in the deck you think should come out?

SaberTech on Mad World Rising

1 year ago

Thanks for the questions greyninja!

Grazilaxx is a remnant from an older, pre-banning of Dockside cEDH build for the deck. At that time in cEDH people were running Animar as more of a midrange deck because it wasn't fast enough for a turbo build to work well in the meta. I've kept it now that I run the deck as more of a Bracket 4 build and have to face off against more board wipes in the casual meta. It's mostly in the deck as another way of drawing cards to help recover but if an opponent would rather have me bounce back my creatures so that I can put more counters on Animar and get more ETB effects instead of drawing a card, then who am I to argue?

I've generally been pretty happy with Elvish Spirit Guide and Simian Spirit Guide. Like you pointed out, they help to increase the chances of a turn 2 Animar. There have also been times where I was digging through my deck with the help of something like Glimpse of Nature but have completely tapped out to do it. In those cases, having cards like the Guides, Lotus Petal, and Chrome MoxGC help to give free coloured mana that I might need to help close out the game. In cEDH the guides are a little more useful because they can pay for cards like Red Elemental Blast and Veil of Summer on their own but even in this build they can help to pay for a Wild Cantor or a Talisman so that I have blue mana up for counters to protect Walking Ballista. At 3 mana, the Guides can also be Neoformed into Ancestral Statue.

The 27 lands may not seem like a lot but some of the cEDH builds have even less. Animar doesn't really need many lands to go off considering the various cheap mana dorks and other ramp the deck provides. It is a bit tricky to go that low in lands and can require some aggressive mulligans to get a decent starting hand. While playing though, I've sometimes found that even just 27 lands can result in some mana flooding when I would really rather be drawing spells. The land count is something that you just have to experiment with for your own build to see where that sweet spot is for your own play style.

As for Utopia Sprawl, there are times where it has been a dead draw but it's not that often. Between the Dual Lands, Shock Lands, and Fetch lands in the deck it's not normally that difficult to get access to a land that counts as a forest on turn 1. Using Utopia Sprawl and Wild Growth as ramp synergizes well with Arbor Elf and can also net extra mana with the help of cards like Snap, Deceiver Exarch, and Peregrine Drake.

greyninja on Mad World Rising

1 year ago

Looks fun! Love to see differences and similarities of the various Animar decks. Pretty sure I +1 years ago

Curious on your inclusion of Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar. Is it more for the first, or second ability?

How do you like Elvish Spirit Guide and Simian Spirit Guide? These are two I have considered myself, to try and get a turn 1-2 Animar. Worried I might just be hard-casting late-game for that +1/+1 on Animar though

27 lands - super aggressive! Do you ever find Utopia Sprawl to be a dead draw with no Forests?

If you have a chance, please take a look at my deck as well! I can see you commented back in 2015, but we've had updates since then ;)

burferking on Turn 0 win vs Chancellor of dross (100%)

1 year ago

Well, if you can play conspiracies, I would use Emissary's Ploy in the sideboard as "A conspiracy doesn't count as a card in your deck for purposes of meeting minimum deck size requirements."
3 Pact of Negation, because in a deck of 60 FoW, each Force of WillGC needs to exile another one. In a starting hand of 7, three could be played.

Main list 53x Contract from Below 2x Elvish Spirit Guide 1x Flash 3x Pact of Negation 1x Thassa's OracleGC

Sideboard 1x Emissary's Ploy

DreadKhan on Monster Feets

1 year ago

I think you should run more stuff like Lotus Petal or Elvish Spirit Guide, Legacy is an incredibly fast format, and a deck like this needs to be putting a threat on board turn 2 pretty reliably, Lands decks and Reanimator decks can both put similar (or even better in the case of Lands) creatures onto the board on or before turn 2.

To protect vs wipes you could try Heroic Intervention, it's pricey but once you've stuck a threat I feel like you need it to stay alive. Not of this World can help protect your big creature from targeted stuff fwiw, but that's neither wipes or counters!

Have you thought about something like Terastodon to deal with stuff like Ensnaring Bridge? If a Discard deck can stick their Bridge do you have any ways to deal with it? I'm not saying Discard is a prevalent deck, but it can also kill a Dark Depths before they go off with it fwiw. The nice perk of the card is if you blow up lands your opponent will have a hard time casting a wipe, while you might be able to make another large creature!

I feel like I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Once Upon a Time, I'd run it as a x4, having one in your opening hand is really, really good I've found in my elf list (which also uses a lot of mana dorks fwiw). Between Once and the plethora of 1 mana dorks I used I ended up going down to 16 lands, which I was pretty happy with in practice.

If you're TRULY desperate for ways to deal with counter magic you can try Null Brooch, I used it in an aggro list to stop wipes, but if you REALLY want to protect stuff that's already on board it can help. It's a terrible card vs rack decks, but that's why we have sideboards, right?

capwner on

1 year ago

Not of this World is an interesting choice, but makes an odd sort of sense for an all-in depths list. What do you think of Sowing Mycospawn as an uncounterable way to tutor out depths (or wasteland)? Elvish Spirit Guide or Lotus Petal might be worth consideration to turbo out your plan a turn earlier. I agree with Balaam, Bayou and 4x Wasteland would be very nice to see in here. As it is, this is impressively budget for a legacy deck! +1