LTmiller, The only problem with that is that if Sandsteppe Mastodon's ETB resolves at any time that Ramos has 2 to 4 on him, the five counters go on to Sandsteppe Mastodon instead of him. Personally I'd prefer to use something like Verdurous Gearhulk and just storm though my deck for the 5th counter.

It's worth noting that Ajani, Mentor of Heroes and Atraxa, Praetors' Voice both give 5 counters as well.

sonnet666 isnt that basically what i said, albeit my was shorter?

Also the gearhulk does give 5 counters, 1 for casting it and 4 for its etb

Ohthenoises - Gearhulk only grants 4 counters during the loop, since Displacer does not recast it.

Athraithe No. You were talking about responding to Life's Legacy after it has been cast and is on the stack. I'm talking about using Ramos's mana ability as part of the casting process for Life's Legacy.

Activating mana abilities during the casting process of a spell is an entirely different game process than responding to that spell while it's on the stack (i.e. you don't have priority), and it can lead to very different outcomes. For example, this is why Lion's Eye Diamond stipulates that you need to activate it as an instant, or how you're able to sac Mindslicer to Ashnod's Altar as part of the payment of Sudden Spoiling and force everyone to discard their hands with Split Second in effect.

It turns out that it has the same outcome in this case, but I thought it best to tell Lilbrudder that, since you didn't actually answer his question with your response.

merrowMania I was referring to the first cast not the loop. Missed that you guys moved on to talking about the loop.

This is a good resource on the intricacies of casting spells.

I run azami stacks deck that i would consider tier 1.5 due to the new release of powerful artifacts specifically paradox engine. I would like to argue that paradox engine made her equal with dagson

The moment the engine was spoiled, the first thing people mentioned was her. She's an OK engine user. That's about it. Engine and Dramatic Reversal improved her game a ton, but Arcum's approach is more streamlined.

One thing that I will add though is that because cEDH is such a small community, there are lots of generals that have stagnated. For some deck, it's even clear that past lists could be improved, but no one's interested enough in doing it for anything to happen. However, for probably a 3rd of the people on this thread, Azami served as a stepping stone in their groups or they themselves piloted Azami when they were first entering cEDH. She's just a damn popular commander and lots of people play her even in cEDH. I'd be really surprised if Azami lists hadn't been explored a ton so far. Meanwhile we have generals like Rashmi, Eternities Crafter who get totally ignored by a large chunk of us.

As the one who has done much of the exploring for Azami in cEDH I will say that Azami is a better Engine user than Sisay and Arcum when it comes to actually using the Engine. For Azami getting the Engine requires her to play tutors or have Azami out draw into the engine. I don't really see these as a downside, but they definitely make Azami's plan in acquiring Engine a bit more of a hassle than Arcum or Sisay. However, when Azami does get Engine onto the board she is a damn near unstoppable force if you build her correctly. You will almost always be running more counter magic and instant speed spells than your opponents. You'll be able to keep your draw coming so that you can combo out. I believe Arcum and Sisay have decent ways of protecting their combos, but I don't believe they are as consistent or thorough as Azami's. I'm not vouching for Azami to be in tier 1.5 these are just my observations after playing Azami exclusively for 3 ish years.

Sure, that's undoubtedly true, but if you get to resolve a combo piece and play around with it, you deserve to win anyway.

Does Animar still deserve its 1.5 Tier ranking? It can pull off extremely fast combo wins, but it is heavily reliant on its Commander to do so and it rarely packs more than a few sources of countermagic and interaction to protect its game plan. The printing of Toxic Deluge hurt it, and then the change to Vancouver Mulligan reduced the deck's consistency to a degree that I'm not certain it has managed to recover from. In terms of speed, variants of Flash Hulk combo can win on turn 1, which can outpace Animar. In multiplayer, the overwhelming amount of Blue that is played means that there are a lot more Chain of Vapor, Cyclonic Rift, and Rapid Hybridization at the table that can disrupt Animar if it manages to get past counterspells.

Granted, Ancestral Statue was a huge gain for the deck, and Walking Ballista offers a win-con that is far easier for the deck to tutor for than Purphoros, God of the Forge is.

Would anyone else argue that Animar is currently too much of a glass cannon to hold its tier 1.5 spot?

TheDevicer I think that's a naive way of looking at it. There are plenty of times where people have resolved their pieces and lost due to disruption later on. I don't think it's fair to say you "deserve" anything for simply resolving a piece of a combo. Also, assuming that I need to resolve a combo piece like Engine is largely inaccurate when I have access to things like Whir of Invention and Transmute Artifact to cheat it out and catch people off guard. I think people like to underestimate Azami due to her cost and mono blue identity (which is fair). Whether she belongs in tier 1.5 is not up to me because I will most likely be seen as biased due to her being my primary deck. I also don't believe that Azami is as popular a general in cEDH as you say she is. Perhaps a few years ago pre mulligan change she was popular, but presently I believe she is largely underrepresented in the cEDH community because as you pointed out, there are lots of generals that have stagnated. I haven't seen many lists for Azami that are more than just casual wizard tribal and those that are more than just casual wizard tribal are largely unoptimized. Sorry for the ramblings, just my thoughts.

I started into cEDH with Yisan but then also quickly built Azami as well.

I also know that many people here have played Azami on their way to playing something else as well so TheDevicer isn't wrong there. (At least 3 people in my meta have built/played Azami as well.)

As far as Paradox Engine goes, I feel like Sisay is the ultimate Engine user just because she reads T:win the game (go get engine then every legend after that untaps Sisay to tutor again.) whereas Azami doesn't have the ability to just tutor it out of the blue (har har) so it's not that consistent.

Consistency being the key here I feel like the order of operations is Sisay > all when it comes to Engine combos.

n0bunga I;m not the person that asked but the only real thing I can think of is Palinchron + Cabal Coffers (or some other way to make it net positive or neutral) to exile your entire library winning with Laboratory Maniac. The "opponents not being able to cast" clause provides some minor protection I guess. It's in no way great but probably above tier 5 (Probably tier 4)

Ohthenoises Although don't forget the main wincon in most Azami lists is Mind Over Matter into Laboratory Maniac

HezTheGod Not anymore, MoM is mostly there for a backup line.

SaberTech Animar is comfortably tier 1.5 in my opinion. You lay out some of his main combo cards and problem cards well. The only thing about Animar that you seem to have overlooked in the sheer number of ways he can attain a victory.

Combos with Earthcraft, Palinchron, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Cloudstone Curio, Cloud of Faeries and more PLUS numerous tutors in temur to assemble whatever combo the player is going for make Animar very resilient even after being disrupted.

He definitely has some problems with creature hate (the most common kind of hate in cEDH) but can usually play around it. These problems do bump his consistency down from tier 1 lists who are slightly more consistent and/or fast.

@Ohthenoises I see what you did there. ;)

Human_Wizard - You're misunderstanding me. I'm not claiming Azami is ubiquitous in the format, just that she's a common point of entry into cEDH. As a result, many people have some degree of expertise when it comes to Azami and she remains a pet deck for tons of people.

Also, I phrased my comment about resolving pieces poorly. What I should have said is that for the common engine abusers, getting the engine down somehow and being able to use it without disruption should win you the game. Both Sisay and Arcum win off of one activation in a vacuum. If the opposition hasn't hit your general or the engine, they must be holding some really narrow answers they're gonna disrupt you with. The correct play seems to hit either the commander or the engine depending on what you can do.

I don't have enough experience playing with these lists to say which approach is the best. To me, it seems like Sisay has the best non-combo plan, arcum has the easiest time going off, and azami has the best protection.

Also, I would be remiss in not mentioning that I think Azami ranks below Arcum as well due to, as I said, consistency. However I feel that Arcum is less powerful than Sisay because you have to actually have an artifact creature in play to use Arcum's ability whereas Sisay isn't bound by any such restrictions. You simply have to tap her.

Anyone know when the amonkhet legends will be up? i mightve missed the answer if its in the thread already and i apologize in advance for missing it, but i looked once and didnt see it

TheDevicer Perhaps in your community Azami was a gateway general for lots of people in cEDH, as for mine I'm one of the only people who play or have played her. I wasn't under the impression that many people used her to get into cEDH, but if you claim that a lot of people do use her to get into cEDH I'll take your word for it. As for the "in a vacuum" statement I don't even know where to begin with that. The entire reason that I brought up Azami being a better user of Paradox Engine in some aspects is because cEDH isn't in a vacuum. Most cEDH decks run quite a few answers. Just saying "in a vacuum X or Y happens" is completely irrelevant to the point I was attempting to make. I'm very well aware that Arcum and Sisay can get PE more consistently than Azami, I was just bringing up their worse protection. I'm willing to bet that you were saying that Azami is an "OK" PE general primarily because she lacks the consistency of Arcum or Sisay and that's fine. Personally, I value Azami's protection and combo security and I am of the opinion that not enough people value those traits. Everyone loves to measure decks around their uninterrupted potential because it's easiest to think that way. I like to challenge that idea because cEDH is a far more complex game than slamming combo pieces and winning easily if you have a competent playgroup. That was what I trying to get at.

TLDR: I value Azami's protection and I don't think that speedily acquiring combo pieces is everything.

Human_Wizard It's not just his meta, my meta has seen 6 people at least (including myself) that started with/built Azami early on in their cEDH career and we have a fairly small group, maybe 15-20 people tops. However, that's just the people I know about.