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Animar, Soul of Value

Commander / EDH Combo Competitive Creature Cheat RUG (Temur)

Zclan7

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Lands (28)

Wincons (6)

Artifact/Enchantment Removal (3)

Ramp (21)

Card Draw (11)

Protection (5)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Animar, Soul of Elements

Tutors (13)

Counter Spells (10)

Creature Removal (1)

Stax (1)

This deck is the first Commander I ever built that also so happened to get the tiniest bit out of hand... so I have been told. Ancestral Statue + Animar, Soul of Elements , that's how we win. The main strategy is to be able to cast Ancestral Statue for free when Animar, Soul of Elements has 4 or more counters and then win the game through Walking Ballista. Totally not predictable at all.

Winning the Game

This deck is all about getting Animar out and kicking off a win line while keeping us completely protected the entire time. Making creatures cost less is not only important but essential to all of our win lines that would normally be considered unusual.

Win Lines

- Barrin, Master Wizard + Dockside Extortionist Combo

Dockside Extortionist with 4+ Artifacts or Enchantments in play by opponents and Barrin, Master Wizard equals infinite ETBs and infinite Animar counters as long as Animar already has at leat one counter. Infinite mana is produced in addition with 5 artifacts and enchantments and a counter on Animar or 6 without Animar. This combo effectively does the same thing as Ancestral Statue, but adds the powerful mana-generation ability of Dockside Extortionist. Notably, when the combo generates infinite mana, it can be used to blink any other cards we have on board, making it trivially easy to with with Walking Ballista.

Barrin is also an Imperial Recruiter target, but, for a very steep mana investment, it's actually possible to chain Recruiter into Barrin, use Barrin to bounce the Recruiter, then re-cast Recruiter and tutor for Dockside, thus assembling this combo with only a single tutor.

- Imperial Recruiter + Neoform Line

If Animar has at least 2 Counters on him, then this line only requires , , and to kick off.

  1. Cast Imperial Recruiter (for ) fetching Phyrexian Metamorph.
  2. Cast Phyrexian Metamorph (for ) copying Imperial Recruiter fetching Spellseeker.
  3. Cast Spellseeker (for ) fetching Neoform.
  4. Cast Neoform for ( and ) sacrificing Spellseeker to grab Ancestral Statue, with the Statue ETB trigger on the stack, bounce itself.
  5. Cast Ancestral Statue (for free) Until You've created "Infinite" Counters On Animar, bounce Phyrexian Metamorph with the last trigger on the stack.
  6. Cast Phyrexian Metamorph (for ) copying Imperial Recruiter fetching Walking Ballista. Then per the usual cast Walking Ballista for lets say 500/500 to shoot the entire pod.

- Good old creature spam until we get ancestral and ballista at once.

One of the best things about creature decks is that any tutor fetches almost any card in our entire library. Sometimes nothing needs to get fancy and you can cast statue with ballista with just a Shared Summons or a Weird Harvest. Card draw is relative enough to the point where you can rely on it giving you a tutor of any sort to start a win line.

Unblockable Animar with Painter's Servant is always an option for a slow kill or to knock out the player staxing you with something like a Cursed Totem. By making everything black with Painter's Servant and Animar's built in protection from black, he becomes unblockable and untouchable on the board.

Self Protection

I haven't learned why yet, but for some reason people don't want to see Animar win so they do everything they can to counterspell you, destroy Animar, or even go as far to stax you. How rude of them.

Almost all of our counterspells should be used with the goal in mind to protect Animar because the deck simply does not work without him. As I mentioned before, we can use a Painter's Servant to give Animar protection from every card in the game by naming black. We name black always and not white because of our small interaction with Veil of Summer.

The largest reason to protect our casts as well, as our creatures on board, is because of the delicate win with Ancestral Statue and Walking Ballista. Eternal Witness is our best "hope" after Ancestral Statue gets sniped by Pongify before the bounce resolves. For this reason, I have the wincons listed as follows Ancestral Statue, Barrin, Master Wizard, Dockside Extortionist, Eternal Witness, Phantasmal Image, Phyrexian Metamorph, and last but not least Walking Ballista.

Phantasmal image and Phyrexian Metamorph could not only copy a great utility piece, but also copy an Ancestral statue or Eternal Witness to save the game. When it comes to counterspells, play the protection game unless it is crucial to stop another player from winning before you.

Removal and Stax at it's Finest

Cursed Totem and Torpor Orb. AKA our worst nightmare. Not very many stax hits us because of Animar's unique ability, but when it hits us it hits hard.

Luckily finding the answer is easy because all of our destruction lies on creatures. Caustic Caterpillar, Goblin Cratermaker, Foundation Breaker, or even a Spellseeker/Mystical Tutor into a Nature's Claim give us the most versatility when it comes to enchantment or artifact removal. Creature removal gets a lot more fun because every creature on the board is always yours for the taking with Gilded Drake. "Hey I like your Commander, I think I will take it." If you ever need more of a creature that you have already used then a Phantasmal Image or Phyrexian Metamorph puts us back in the game.

Why not the Kiri-Onna Line?

The Kiri-Onna + Imperial Recruiter line goes something like this

  1. Imperial Recruiter for Phyrexian Metamorph
  2. Meta as Recruiter for Kiri
  3. Kiri bouncing Meta
  4. Meta as Kiri bouncing Kiri
  5. Kiri bouncing Meta and Kiri
  6. Meta as Recruiter for Peregrine Drake/Dockside Extortionist
  7. / Drake/Dockside (Chain is now mana-neutral). / in pool.
  8. Kiri bouncing Meta /
  9. Meta as Kiri bouncing Kiri /
  10. Kiri bouncing Meta and Drake/Dockside /
  11. / Recast Drake/Dockside /
  12. Repeat steps 9-11 (/) Kiri-bounce and recast Drake/Dockside /
  13. Finally Meta copies Recruiter for Walking Ballista

Alright, that is a lot. This is a common backup win line in most Animar decks, but I have found it to be too situational and very steep on the mana requirement. Everytime I go to use this win line I could have just as easily used a cheaper, more protected, win line. I realized that more interaction/ protection to stop opponents and protect Animar is the better slot option.

Final Thoughts

I know Animar is not a top tier commander but I just love him and the "unconventional" win lines and dumping every creature in my hand in one turn. The deck will never truly be complete between art upgrades and the hunt for decently priced true duel lands. Please feel free to leave your thoughts on the deck, I love to talk about Animar! Also check out this deck's arch enemy Jhoira, the Beyblade Recycler piloted by TheRileyMan525.

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Casual

94% Competitive