How to Build Animar, Soul of Elements

Quick answer

Animar, Soul of Elements is a blue-red-green commander that puts a +1/+1 counter on itself every time you cast a creature spell, and reduces the cost of your future creature spells by one for each counter it has. It also has protection from white and from black, which shields it from a large share of the format's cheap removal. The deck wants a low curve of cheap creatures early to snowball fast, then uses the accumulating discount to cast normally expensive payoffs for a fraction of their cost, closing games through a huge attacker or an assembled combo.

How Animar works

Every creature spell you cast, Animar's or not, puts a +1/+1 counter on him, and each of those counters reduces the cost of every future creature spell you cast by one generic mana. The two effects compound: more counters mean cheaper creatures, and cheaper creatures mean you can cast more of them per turn, which means more counters. Because the discount applies to any creature spell, not just ones cast after a certain point, a card that costs six mana at the start of the game can cost two or three once Animar has grown for a few turns.

The protection from white and black is a genuine deckbuilding consideration too: it means Animar himself dodges the bulk of white and black removal outright, so the deck's protection budget can be spent on answers to red, green, blue, and colorless threats instead of spreading thin across every color.

Game plan

Early: cast Animar, then chain cheap creatures every turn to build counters as fast as possible, prioritizing quantity of creature spells over any single card's power. Mid: the discount starts making bigger creatures affordable well ahead of schedule, and flicker or bounce effects can re-trigger the best enter-the-battlefield creatures for extra value. Late: close the game either through a grown board of creatures attacking, a single huge threat pumped by Kessig Wolf Run, or an assembled combo if the deck runs one.

What the deck needs

Underneath the counters engine, this is a three-color creature deck that needs a working mana base, real interaction, and a curve that isn't only expensive payoffs. See the Commander deck template for the baseline ratios, and the +1/+1 Counters archetype page for the ten cards that define the wider strategy.

Best cards for Animar

Cheap creatures that keep the engine growing

Deceiver Exarch ↗

A cheap flash creature that grows Animar the moment it's cast and can untap a land or tap down a blocker, useful on either player's turn.

Peregrine Drake ↗

Refunds much of its own cost by untapping lands on entry, letting the deck chain into another cheap creature the same turn and grow Animar twice.

Vizier of the Menagerie ↗

Lets you play creatures off the top of your library for any color of mana, which both smooths the mana base and keeps feeding Animar new creature casts.

Protection and re-triggering value

Temur Sabertooth ↗

Bounces your own creatures to hand for cheap, which re-triggers their enter-the-battlefield effects and dodges removal on Animar's biggest threats.

Bramble Sovereign ↗

Copies a nontoken creature entering for a small cost, effectively doubling the value of your best creature cast that turn.

Big payoffs once the discount is online

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker ↗

A hasty copy of any nonlegendary creature you control each turn, which combines with the deck's cheap flicker and untap effects for some of the format's best-known infinite combos.

Progenitor Mimic ↗

Enters as a copy of any creature on the battlefield and keeps making more copies of itself every upkeep, a self-sustaining value engine that also grows Animar on cast.

Kessig Wolf Run ↗

A land that turns any amount of leftover mana, cheap thanks to Animar's discount, into a huge pump and trample for the turn, a clean way to close with a single big attacker.

Win conditions

Separate the engine (cheaper, bigger creatures every turn) from the actual win. Most games end through a straightforward attack once the board is big enough that combat math no longer favors the table, or through a genuine combo (Kiki-Jiki plus a cheap untap or bounce effect is one of the format's best known) if the deck is built to include one. The engine alone isn't a finisher; it just makes whatever finisher the deck runs dramatically cheaper to deploy.

Weaknesses and common mistakes

Losing Animar resets both the counters and the discount, so protection matters more here than in most creature decks, even accounting for his built-in resistance to white and black removal specifically. A common building mistake is loading the deck with expensive payoffs and too few cheap early creatures, which slows the snowball exactly when it needs to start. Board wipes are a real threat too, since the engine's value is stored entirely on the battlefield.

Budget options

Animar himself and cheap creatures like Deceiver Exarch and Peregrine Drake are all affordable, and the deck works fine without the expensive combo pieces some builds chase. Prioritize a deep, cheap creature base over any single powerful (and pricier) payoff, since the counters engine rewards volume more than raw power per card.

Example deck

Build the full 99 in the Deck Lab, starting from Animar and the cards above, or check an existing list with Rate My Deck. For finished, working examples, browse published decks filtered to Animar.

Frequently Asked Questions