Survival of the Fittest

Enchantment

, Discard a creature card: Search your library for a creature card, reveal that card, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.

Discussion (51)

Profet93 on Higher Power

6 minutes ago

MrTomDawson

Thank you for your reply!

I agree with all of your points! I am curious, since you think Fauna shaman is too slow, how about a Survival of the Fittest?

Profet93 on Beat Down//Grind Out

22 hours ago

Dolphin_Jesus - Love the name

I play Xenagos but not with an MLD package. You have a low land count and a relatively high AVG cmc. If you're going to be wiping landbases and opponents wiping your creatures, you will not be left in an advantageous position. Why not add more artifact ramp such as Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Talisman of Impulse, and The Great Henge? These will ramp you and will help you break parity.

Alternatively, you can run Collector Ouphe instead to shut down opposing artifacts as blue mages (as well as white, red and black players) will almost always be using artifacts to ramp and the small anti-synergy is worth it IMO should you choose to go that route. City of Solitude might be worth considering over or in addition to Price of Glory.

If you're still worried about blue, Veil of Summer acts as a cheap cantrip and anti-blue/black card. You're already running Pyroblast so specific color hate doesn't seem to be an issue for you.

You are trying to make deals but in my meta, if you play MLD, people will target you. There's nothing wrong with MLD, but most people don't like losing their lands so I'm curious how/if you have actually been able to politic your way out of a situation, unless the combo player is gonna win. '

Survival of the Fittest/Fauna Shaman might be worth considering with all your creatures. Not to mention the synergy with Anger and Eternal Witness. A Genesis might be worth considering should you go that route.

My honest opinion is that this deck lacks enough card draw, lands and meaningful ramp to be able to compete in a semi-competitive meta (no idea what your meta is like, but this wouldn't hold up in mine). You only run 6 pieces of ramp that allow you to get Xenagos out earlier.

Card Draw

Return of the Wildspeaker > Soul's Majesty - You don't want them to use removal in response to majesty, but rather, use wildspeaker in response to removal.

Rishkar's Expertise - Similar to above but with added benefit of not losing tempo

Greater Good - The most powerful card in a Xenagos deck. If you listen to anything I say, this is it.

Lifeblood Hydra - Even if it dies, you gain value. Pair it with another card you should add, Berserk (which goes exceedingly well with Malignus)

Life's Legacy/Momentous Fall - Yes, additional cost to cast sucks, but its very helpful to draw and it helps get around spot removal.

Removal + Utility

Beast Within - Good old instant speed permanent removal

Decimate - 4 for 1, amazing value

Voracious Hydra - Beater and removal in one

Dosan the Falling Leaf - Anti blue, anti spot removal if blue is a thorn in your side

Bolt Bend - Redirect removal, counter counterspells, redirect some draw as well as some extra turns. Very useful for 1

If you would like ideas for cuts or want to discuss strategy

dingusdingo on A Perfect cEDH Deck

1 week ago

Very nice fish hulk list. The triple stifle is nasty for mirrors indeed, not just from stopping Hulk but also from cards like Survival of the Fittest and fetchlands.

Have you considered Dread Return ? This opens up combo lines that are highly protected. After you have milled you no longer need the Nomad or the Cephalid, which makes them ideal for Dread Return

• Grab Grand Abolisher Nomads en-Kor Cephalid Illusionist and any 1 CMC creature
• Breakfast that shizz, mill library with Nomads + Cephalid
• Flashback Dread Return by sacrificing Nomads + Cephalid + 1 CMC dork
• Grand Abolisher on field entire time makes interaction extremely limited for opponents.
• Thassa's Oracle comes from Dread Return, seeing 2 devotion (or more, but 2 from Thassa) on 0 card deck for winning trigger.

No Utopia Sprawl ?

Talk to me about Neoform . It seems like an odd inclusion to me but I see it frequently in hulk lists. Is it just for value for turning 1 CMC dorks into Dark Confidant or Gilded Drake or Grand Abolisher ?

Boseiju, Who Shelters All is a saucy include as well. Have you considered Crop Rotation to allow EOT combo set up?

dingusdingo on Fish Hulk might be a ...

2 weeks ago

Hulk strategy without flash basically has four parts

1. Find the hulk
2. Discard the hulk
3. Reanimate the hulk
4. Sac the hulk

Flash is a powerful card for this combo because it basically does steps 2-4. The large amount of creature/general tutors in Green + Black means step 1 isn't too hard either.

There are already decks that exist without Flash as the Hulk mechanism though. These decks are much more "all-in" than FlashHulk, because you usually have some part of the Hulk equation in the command zone. The GB Varolz, the Scar-Striped hulk deck is a great example of this. Leverage high density of creature/general tutors in GB to find Hulk. Leverage high density of 1 or 2 CMC discard outlets in Black to pitch Hulk to GY. Leverage high density of 1 or 2 CMC reanimation pieces in Black to reanimate the hulk. Have sac outlet in command zone to complete the puzzle. Also yes with the proper draws you can hit this combo turn 1 or turn 2, but the important part is that its pretty damn consistent by turn 3.

There's also the matter of Hulk loops with cards like Body Snatcher and Body Double and Phyrexian Delver , allowing you to abuse Hulk death trigger multiple times.

While a deck like that is much more all-in than FlashHulk, its still blisteringly fast and consistent because of Hulk. Other cards like Survival of the Fittest help the consistency greatly and enable the strategy, but once again Hulk is the fatty payoff that leads to wins.

If you ban Flash , you're just asking for the current Hulk deck to be replaced by another Hulk deck. Maybe the delivery method is Razakats instead of Flash. Big whoop. Its the same deck with a new coat of paint. Ban Protean Hulk and lets bust this meta wide open.

As for Demonic Consultation and Tainted Pact . Yeah I'm totally fine with them getting banned too. Labman + Consultation combos can go into and UBx deck, and just like Hulk they really aren't very interesting once you seen it once. I'm not really itching to see them banned though.

Milkspy on The I.T. Department [Primer]

2 weeks ago

Cool variant on razakats!

What's your reasoning on not chosing thrasios as your partner for tymna? Also why do you play both Bitter Ordeal and Blood Artist , since they both kinda furfill the same purpose. I also have thought about using bitter ordeal in my version, but found out that blood artist was really easy to tutor with Survival of the Fittest , while pitching warder in the graveyard. On the other hand I really like to have ordeal in my deck to get rid of opponent's combo pieces.

Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor on The Brawly Bunch

1 month ago

Thanks for the comment Poly_raptor!

I would most certainly run Elvish Piper and Fauna Shaman in a normal Xenagos build, but I've constructed the deck to only want a small number of the most impactful creatures. Including something like Elvish Piper makes cards like Selvala's Stampede and Reality Scramble much less potent. Likewise, I don't think I run enough creatures (8 in total) to make Survival of the Fittest worthwhile.

Through the Breach is an interesting suggestion that I'll have to think about. Besides Sneak Attack , I had initially included Quicksilver Amulet in the deck. I ended up removing it because of the low creature count and I wanted more interactive cards which keep me alive. I view Sneak Attack as more of a back up plan in case one large creature gets stranded in hand. Through the Breach might be a good include though as it has less of a mana investment than Quicksilver Amulet .

Natural Order and Chord of Calling are great suggestions that I'll have to consider. I had disregarded those two originally, but that was before I included the token producers. I should definitely reconsider those card now. Tooth and Nail is another one I am considering currently.

Poly_raptor on The Brawly Bunch

1 month ago

I agree, I think this is better than Atla, one of the reasons I didn’t build her in paper was because she was an easy target for removal and then your left with eggs.

I have a couple of suggestions, I do think the list looks good as is, so I’m just suggesting them for a bit of discussion:

If sneak attack were to get shut down or removed it may be worth running Through the Breach or Elvish Piper ?

Natural Order fetches most of your creatures too, or Chord of Calling can be convoked using a lot of your tokens.

Survival of the Fittest (budget dependant) or Fauna Shaman could be handy for you too.

+1 from me

FadingReality on Animar the biggest boi

1 month ago

Your deck's average CMC is a bit high (even for eldrazi). In addition, you have a low amount of ramp (although a fair amount of the ramp you do have is solid). The combination of high average CMC and low ramp can often result in a higher than average amount of games where the deck will not do anything productive for far too long. So first and foremost, we should find a way to lower the deck's average CMC while simultaneously increasing its ramp/mana acceleration. Secondly, we want to add more removal/disruption to the deck. Finally, we want to upgrade the average card quality. Doing these three things will DRASTICALLY improve this deck's competitiveness, speed, and power. Removal/disruption is crucial at every point of a commander game, but it is absolutely vital in the early turns of the game. This is even more true when talking about a slower deck. Being able to stop an opponent's explosive starts or protect yourself from early threats is very important. Removal allows slower decks to make it to late game where they can then take over and dominate. Animar is an incredibly powerful commander AND his CMC is very low. Casting him early provides you with an ever growing blocker/attacker that also helps you get to your bombs quicker so I think the commander choice here is an excellent one. His protection from white and black will also stonewall early aggro in those colors. So obviously I think this deck's first objective is to get Animar out ASAP. However, Animar is not invincible (although close) and he can also be countered and he is only one card (albiet one that you always have access to). So again, we need to find ways to increase early game pressure and/or protection. Below are a list of cards I'd suggest for each of those categories. I will not consider budget with my suggestions. Not all of my suggestions will be expensive tho. Although some of my suggestions are expensive cards, they will be the absolute best options for the things we are trying to improve. Also, you can always slowly acquire some of these cards over time. Even a $100 card can be acquired in 4 months without impacting your finances. You can set aside $25 bucks a month (or even every two weeks) and get a $100 card in 2-4 months. I will leave most of the swapping of cards up to you, but I will mention certain cards in your deck that I think should be directly swapped with one of my suggestions. Anyways, without further ado: my suggestions.

RAMP

Gaea's Cradle – This card is expensive af (probably my most expensive suggestion) but it is a staple in a lot of commander decks. Animar is one of those decks. Animar thrives off casting creatures and Animar decks generally have lots of creatures on their board. The other ridiculously amazing thing about this card (aside from being able to tap for ABSURD amounts of mana) is that it is a land and thus doesn't consume a precious deck slot.

Ancient Tomb and Mana Crypt are monsters of acceleration and Tomb, like Gaea's Cradle, doesn't take up a deck slot. These two I wouldn't recommend as hard as Cradle and they do hurt you so I could see not including them without a certain amount of lifegain. Life doesn't matter that much in cEDH but in regular EDH life totals are usually quite important.

A fair amount of the one drop mana dorks. Your commander's colors will prevent you from being able to play Noble Hierarch , but you should definitely include Birds of Paradise and some combination of Elvish Mystic , Llanowar Elves , and Fyndhorn Elves . Sylvan Caryatid isn't a bad choice either. I persoanlly think Caryatid is better than Rattleclaw Mystic although I think the Rattleclaw is fine and probably shouldn't be cut. Many people believe artifacts are superior to mana dorks but this view isn't completely correct. Artifacts have two main strengths over dorks: they can tap the same turn you play them and they are (generally) harder to remove. In every other way however (barring specific strategies), mana dorks are better. They can chump block hits that would kill you, swing for damage, can be recurred much more easily than artifacts, and can be used as fodder for cards like Fauna Shaman and Survival of the Fittest . You can't feed a 1 mana artifact to those cards and tutor up an Ulamog but mana dorks let you do this. This is also only speaking generally. In certain decks (ESPECIALLY Animar) the payoff for running them is even greater. Paying 1 mana for a mana dork makes Animar grow even stronger and lets him discount more expensive creatures even harder. With Animar on the field, dorks effectively provide 2 mana. They raise the discount and tap for mana themselves. Animar with 3 lands and 3 dorks can let you cast something for 9 mana on turn 4! If one of those lands was Gaea's Cradle , it would allow 12 mana on turn 4!! Other ramp I'd include would be Nature's Lore , Farseek , and Cultivate . Out of these 3 I just mentioned, I'd defintely cut Explosive Vegetation for one of these. Ramp cards that you have that I would absolutely NOT cut at all are Sol Ring , Arcane Signet , Chromatic Lantern , Kodama's Reach , Skyshroud Claim , and Commander's Sphere . These cards were great choices and I would keep all of them.

DISRUPTION/REMOVAL

URG doesn't have the greatest removal options, but there are some suprisingly good choices. Also, the fact that you have access to blue means that you can run almighty counterspells. Counterspells are just awesome and they are often the only way to beat combo decks. Animar is a very creature/aggro based deck so I am not advocating that this should be a control deck by any means. I would only recommend 3 counters for this reason: Counterspell , Mana Drain , and maybe Disallow because of its versatility. I would NOT cut swan song or negate. These two cards are absolutlely amazing and were very good choices. You don't necessarily need to add all of these counters, but I'd definitely add at least 1-2 more. If you find that you don't want to add any (I'd try not to do this) then I would swap negate with Counterspell or Mana Drain . I run negate in most decks that can run it so, again, I wouldn't cut it unless you don't want to add other counters. Only then would I swap it out.

For removal, I'd recommend Reality Shift , Beast Within , and the dreaded Cyclonic Rift . Reality shift is one of the only good exile creature spells without access to white or black. Beast within will deal with any permanent and the beast it leaves means nothing to an Animar deck. Rift is a one sided INSTANT speed board wipe that can also double as temporary removal for any permanent other than lands. An Animar deck with a full board will pretty much win the game after a successful overloaded Rift. I would NOT cut Ulamog at all because he is freaking amazing and his exile two of anything ability is really nice, especially in URG. I'd also keep Balefire Dragon. He's a one sided creature board wipe. Also with the ramp upgrades he will be reliable to cast. I'd strongly recommend every single one of the three removal options I just mentioned. Steel Hellkite is also maybe good here too but I wouldn't necessarily include it. It can potentially cost 0 mana with Animar and is one-sided.

Upgrading Card Qualtiy

Let me first list all the cards here currently in your deck that I would cut. Then I'll suggest some better cards IMO. For creatures I would cut Ancestral Statue, Avatar of Slaughter (this card looks cool but is more of a fun chaos card then a reliable good card. Its 8 mana and can often backfire on you and get you killed. An 8 mana card shouldn't do this), Bearer of the Heavens , Eldrazi Mimic , Endless One , Forgotten Ancient , Hooded Hydra , Pathrazer of Ulamog , and Tromokratis (he is powerful comapered to some of my other cut suggestions, but as you'll see below, there are superior creatures that cost less mana). Assuming you take any of my suggestions, make sure that if you cut one of these creatures you replace it with a creature I suggested. You have 35 creatures in this deck which is actually a very good number for Animar so you should still try to maintain the 35 creature count.

I like your land base but you need at least 35 lands (maaaaybe 34 if you add a bunch more ramp). Your base and colored mana access is good so I will recommend utility lands here. Also don't forget about Gaea's cradle that I mentioned earlier. Anyway, consider Yavimaya Hollow , Alchemist's Refuge , Oran-Rief, the Vastwood , and Kessig Wolf Run . Hollow protects your creatures, refuge lets you play any nonland card at instant speed (many applications for this!), Vastwood buffs your board and provides synergy with the +1/+1 counter cards, and wolf run will let Animar 1 or 2 shot people for lethal commander damage. Again, here I wouldn't cut any of the lands you currently have. You just need to add a couple more lands, that's all.

Noncreature, nonland cuts I'd make would be Death's Presence (overcosted for what it does and can be played around), Forced Adaptation (slow and gives card disadvantage if the creature its on is killed) Frontier Siege (not actually a bad card but its only worth it if you have lots of fliers and not too great at ramp since its 4 mana), Rage Reflection (this card really isn't bad but I think its kinda expensive at 6 mana and slow), Explosive Vegetation (mentioned this earlier), Guided Passage (your opponnents get to see your entire deck which is BAD and you can't assume they will ever get you anything good unless both of you have a much more dangerous mutual enemy. Its also worthless in 1v1), and See the Unwritten (just severely overcosted and not very good).

Here are my suggestions finally. Note that I won't re-mention the earlier suggestions from my previous sections (ramp and removal), but don't forget those.

Creatures I'd consider including would be Kozilek, Butcher of Truth (I would directly swap this with pathrazer. It is much more powerful, has better stats, a better annhilator AND costs less mana. Plus it draws you cards. Directly making this particular swap will also slightly lower your average CMC), Consecrated Sphinx (I'd directly swap this for tromokratis. It will lower average CMC, and although it's smaller than tromo, its flying will allow it to deal damage more often than tromo. The main reason this card is busted is its draw ability. Even having this live for only two turns will win you the game by burying your opponents in card advantage), Kalonian Hydra (I'd directly replace this with Hooded Hydra as he grows WAAAY faster and buffs other creatures aside from himself provided they also have +1/+1 counters. In combination with Oran-rief, he can start buffing creatures that normally wouldn't have +1/+1 counters on them. Finally he's gross with Animar), Etali, Primal Storm , and Nezahal, Primal Tide (another big card advantage engine and can be infuriating to try to kill). Other good support creatures that help with smoothing your draws, providing various support, and/or removing things would be Keranos, God of Storms , Thassa, God of the Sea , Nylea, God of the Hunt , Genesis (he provides never ending creature recursion and is VERY difficult to stop from the graveyard much like anger, brawn, and wonder), Fauna Shaman (survival of the fittest's lesser creature cousin. Survival and fauna shaman are absolute musts in Animar because they work so well as tutors and Animar decks have high creature densities. They also combo disgustingly with genesis, anger, wonder, and brawn), and finally Eternal Witness . Eternal witness NEEDS a place in this deck. It should be in any deck with green and it is also one of the top 7 most played cards in the whole format according to EDHREC. It also is disgusting with genesis. Also note that Thassa, Keranos, Nylea, and Nezahal all resist board wipes and allow you to retain some semblance of a board state following a boardwipe. Keranos and Nezahal also draw you cards so they even help with the rebuilding after a wipe.

Noncreature stuff to consider would be Survival of the Fittest (already explained why it should be included hopefully. It's a fauna shaman that can be activated any number of times per turn instead of only once and is more difficult to remove), Seasons Past (just an insane value card that goes back in your deck and can even get difficult to recur cards like instants and sorceries), Doubling Season (high $$ card but it works really well in your deck with all the +1/+1 counters) Rhystic Study (this even sees play in cEDH like mystic remora. People will not often pay the 1 mana. If they do, they have taxed themselves. Either you draw more cards or tax your opponent's spells. It's a win/win. Also, unlike remora, it stops all types of spells and doesn't require a cumulative upkeep. Make no mistake however, remora is still AMAZING). My last and final suggestions are tutors. Tutors are so important in commander. Too important too ignore. You aren't running any that I can see. URG doesn't have the greatest tutor options but they have some really good ones. I already mentioned fauna shaman and survival of the fittest. Others I'd try hard to slot in include Green Sun's Zenith , Finale of Devastation , Mystical Tutor , and Worldly Tutor .

Anyway, I hope I have been helpful. I tried to mention the cards that I think should absolutely find a way into the deck, but also keep in mind that not all of my suggestions are a must. Again, we just want to lower the average CMC, increase ramp and removal, and upgrade card quality, (like hooded hydra >> kalonian hydra). Good luck and overall a very cool deck! You have my upvote good sir.