Imperial Recruiter

Creature — Human Advisor

When this enters the battlefield, search your library for a creature card with power 2 or less, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (49)

AkaAkuma on Calamity |

1 week ago

That is very true!

I have only been uploading this list from my deck to tappedout yesterday night and Collision / Colossus is not included with my paper version haha.. Now i understand why i had 100 cards in this list but ended up with a lonely Maze of Ith sitting at the corner of my desk after i cleaned everything up. Thanks!

I will make some more changes soon as i have a pile with potential cards still to work out. e.g. Selective Obliteration, Obsidian Charmaw and i'm still debating whether or not i should include Imperial Recruiter.

SaberTech on Animar enthusiasts!

3 weeks ago

The value of Trinket Mage really depends on what else you have for it to target besides the Ballista. I did run it at one point but that was back when I was also running Skullclamp, which I think is the main inclusion that makes Trinket Mage worth considering. If you are also running a number of cheap mana rocks like Chrome MoxGC and Mana VaultGC that can also help justify the inclusion. If you face a lot of graveyard decks and feel compelled to put in some artifact-based graveyard hate then that could be another reason to run Trinket Mage. It can also tutor for artifact lands, but generally you want as many of Animar's lands as possible to produce at least two different types of mana so the single-colour artifact lands aren't the best to include while the dual-colour artifact lands enter tapped, which you also want to avoid your lands doing if you can.

The reason why Transit Mage makes the cut despite also only having a few targets is because:

• Finding Ancestral Statue is more important to the deck. There are already a number of ways to get to the Ballista.
• Being able to go Imperial Recruiter -> Phyrexian Metamorph -> Transit Mage -> Ancestral Statue -> Rack up counters on animar then bounce Metamorph -> Metamorph copying Recruiter to get Walking Ballista is a super mana efficient line when Animar starts with just 2 counters.

Total mana cost for the line: RU + 4 life.

That line is way more mana efficient than the old line that required you to tutor up Spellseeker, have the Seeker tutor Neoform and then you Neoform the Seeker into Ancestral Statue. Transit Mage basically lets you get the same result for that stage in the line for just one blue mana, and it keeps the line to only using creatures so there are less commonly-used counterspells that can interrupt it.

SaberTech on Animar enthusiasts!

1 month ago

Now that Animar has Transit Mage, some of the cEDH builds are running Shield-Wall Sentinel and Drift of Phantasms to use as parts of a chain that ends with getting both Ancestral Statue and Walking Ballista.

Starts with Animar having two counters on it already:

Transit Mage -> tutor for Phyrexian Metamorph -> Metamorph copies Transit Mage and Tutors for Ancestral Statue -> Cast and bounce the Statue a bunch of times to get Animar's counter count to over twice your opponents' combined life total -> Cast Statue and bounce Metamorph -> Cast Metamorph copying the Mage to tutor Shield-Wall Sentinel -> Cast the Sentinel to tutor Drift of Phantasms -> Transmute Drift of Phantasms to tutor Imperial Recruiter -> Cast the Recruiter to tutor up Walking Ballista to win the game.

Total Mana requirements: UUUR1 + 4 life.

I've also been testing out Transplant Theorist as an alternative Transit Mage target for when I already have Statue in hand and need a way to dig for Walking Ballista. The Theorist can dig through the deck with Ancestral Statue and can also net value if you happen to be bouncing a bunch of your mana rocks with Hullbreaker Horror. There have been times where blue mana was a bit tight and I found the Theorist more convenient than trying to work through the long spell chain I outlined above.

Spirits on Kaalia, Mirror Breaker EDH

1 month ago

matvone,

Agreed the Entomb + Animate Dead ({1}{B}{B}) is less mana intensive than the Buried Alive + Reanimate ({2}{B}{B}). It's much higher risk for sure, I thought about just using the Leonin Relic-Warder instead, but the extra mana slowed it down.

Gisela, Blade of Goldnight is a good pull out, along with Avacyn, Angel of Hope were both out from 2020-2024 but I decided to add a combat damage line back in, there both unnecessary angels in here.

Bogardan Hellkite lived in this deck forever, until the Orcish Bowmasters was printed, but it is a great alternative if the focus is the Worldgorger Dragon lines.

Red Dragon does the damage, but it doesn't have Flash so it's not really effective like Orcish Bowmasters or Bogardan Hellkite. Recruiter of the Guard and Imperial Recruiter are also great for finding the Orcish Bowmasters with the combo.

Love Kaalia combo, very cool matvone.

Crow_Umbra on Watch the Party Die [Primer]

2 months ago

Profet93

• I gave the edge to Giver of Runes for having an additional toughness, and can also protect from colorless, which is a bit niche.

• I addressed this in the Draw & Tutor part of my primer:

"Imperial Recruiter - An excellent option for this deck, especially given the potential for repeat uses. Recruiter of the Guard could be another supplemental option to Imperial Recruiter. She would be able to tutor up 18/34 creatures, with some overlap with the 22/34 that Imperial Recruiter can tutor."

I gave the edge to Imperial Recruiter since it can grab options like Professional Face-Breaker, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, Preston, the Vanisher, and Burakos, Party Leader.

• Hall of Heliod's Generosity is more so a contingency in case I recur any of my enchantments. It's niche, but I like it.

• I run Vault of the Archangel in my Mardu/Orzhov aggro decks, espcially if they have the Treasure support in the mid-game to threaten or actually use the activation. It's worked for me before.

Balaam__ on Behold A Great Red Dragon

3 months ago

Thanks for posting, seshiro_of_the_orochi, and Imperial Recruiter is exactly what this deck needs! I double checked on that (sluggish and clunky) Gatherer card database and it most certainly is Modern legal. I’ve maybeboarded it for now, but it’ll almost certainly be added in a revision. I added the others too, but I’ll have to take a closer look at them later. Thanks a ton!

seshiro_of_the_orochi on Behold A Great Red Dragon

3 months ago

Off of that tutoring-suggesting above, I tried to find a card that finds Minion. Staying in red only, I found two.

Imperial Recruiter is expensive and isn't modern legal, but would obviously do the the job.

Pattern Matcher might be interesting here, but isn't that great, unfortunately.

Ever considered Sarkhan's Triumph to maybe shrink your dragon toolbox a little? Also, Kolaghan Warmonger seems like a great addition to the deck.

Which is hilarious, btw. Love the idea!

MTGBurgeoning on Sippin' on Satya's Jeskai-Flavored Energy Drink

4 months ago

Sundial of the Infinite is an awesome consideration for Satya! Thank you for that!! As for Imperial Recruiter, would it be worthy of inclusion if it can only tutor up just 10 of the 21 creatures currently in the 99?