Keruga, the Macrosage // Animar, Soul of Elements - [Companion // Commander Pairing]

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago



One of my endevours has been to build around all the companions possible in commander.

So far the companions I've build around are;
Zirda, the Dawnwaker // Kenrith, the Returned King (also Golos, Tireless Pilgrim)
Gyruda, Doom of Depths // Jodah, Archmage Eternal
Jegantha, the Wellspring // Sisay, Weatherlight Captain

Now I've finally tackled Keruga, the Macrosage.
With the restriction of no cards less than 3 coverted mana cost, it inheritly means that you in general will not have a play until Turn 3 most games. This means that by proxy, you really are just going to be a casual deck.
The best way to describe this deck is that its the perfect casual deck for those that struggle not to build cEDH decks :P

There are cards and ways to get Turn 1 or Turn 2 plays.
Land ramp Search for Tomorrow.
Counterspells with Mystical Dispute, Force of Will, Misdirection.
Removal with Force of Vigor and Submerge
Oakhame Adversary if an opponent plays a Green permanent.
Parcelbeast and Sea-Dasher Octopus can be played on a Dryad Arbor on Turn 2. Maybe you can use a fetchland for Forest to get it on Turn 1.
Gemstone Caverns and Ancient Tomb give you the mana boost for Turn 2 plays.

What commanders I tried with Keruga, the Macrosage
Keruga, the Macrosage // Pir, Imaginative Rascal // Toothy, Imaginary Friend
Intially the deck was a Simic Pir, Imaginative Rascal and Toothy, Imaginary Friend. The idea is that I wanted to have 3 "commanders" so that Keruga, the Macrosage would potentially have more permanents on the battlefield naturally with command zone options.
Also I just really wanted to have 3 "commanders". Hey this is WotC plan for commander, not mine.
With Keruga ability to draw, this meant a way to put +1/+1 counters on Toothy, Imaginary Friend.
This version was fine, but I decided I wanted more of a blink deck, as this enables to get more uses out of Keruga if you blink it.

Keruga, the Macrosage // Roon of the Hidden Realm
Roon of the Hidden Realm seemed like a good commander for this type of strategy and so I ended up trying Bant.
Again this deck was also a lot of fun, and using Roon to blink out Keruga provided a lot of draw.
I supplimented this with lots of ETB creatures for value. Blinking land ramp creatures was particularly a main goal, so that I had increasing amounts of mana each turn.

Keruga, the Macrosage // Animar, Soul of Elements
But I do have a lot of blink decks already, so for my final attempt I wanted see if I could push Animar, Soul of Elements with this companion.
I've played Animar before and one of the things I noticed is that often you can play your hand out quickly, but without a draw engine you can often run out of steam. So with Keruga, the Macrosage you have the perfect opportunity to refill your hand, and probably only costing {g/u}{g/u} with Animar cost reduction you can really get the ball rolling again.

Midrange Goodstuff
Its about as goodstuff a midrange deck as you can get. Solid 3-5 converted cards that aim to mana ramp you and draw you tons of cards.
With Animar cost reduction you are able play out you hand fairly quickly, so the casting cost isn't such a big deal and you are able to cast multiple spells each turn, if not your entire hand.

Attack of the Clones
Rather than using the blink theme of Roon of the Hidden Realm, with Animar we are using "clones" to get multiple triggers potentially from Keruga.
There are 8 of them, and with Animar on enough counters, they can easily draw 5 or more cards for u or uu often when you copy Keruga.
I've also found them to just be solid creatures in general, as they allow you to keep tempo with whatever your opponents are doing with creatures in general. If they are playing big fatties, then you also get to do the same thing, but at a much reduced cost rate.

Prophet of Kruphix
In the same mold of trying to cast mutliple cards as you have a have access to so much potential draw, and the deck doesn't have fast mana like Moxes, Sol Ring, cheap mana creatures, etc, etc, then I'm still hedging my bets with even more enablers for casting multiple spells a turn cycle.
Untapping mana sources and then using flash enablers is a favourite of mine (aka Prophet of Kruphix), so I've have a lot of these to basically give you psuedo extra turns.
The flash enablers are Leyline of Anticipation, Yeva, Nature's Herald, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, Alchemist's Refuge, Winding Canyons.
Seedborn Muse and Awakening will untap all your mana sources so that you have mana on opponents turns.

Top of Library
Another favorite strategy of mine is cards that allow you to play off the top of your library.
Courser of Kruphix and Oracle of Mul Daya allow you to play lands off the top of your library.
Parcelbeast and Nissa, Vastwood Seer are different in that they have activated abilities that put lands into play off the top of library.
Vizier of the Menagerie is specifically for creatures spells, but with literally 50% of the deck critters, its custom made for getting value.
Magus of the Future, Future Sight and Experimental Frenzy are one step better in that they can play any cards, even lands.

To get around the one land per turn limit we have Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove, Wayward Swordtooth, Mina and Denn, Wildborn.
These really help to make playing off the top of your library cards more effectual.

Mutate
There are 6 mutate creatures in the deck, and with Animar cost reduction you can look to get value by piling them all onto one another. Animar is a non-Human, so you have a target for them and the protection from Black and White does mean that it offers more hexproof than you'd first imagine.
This element is more for fun trying new mechanics, rather than power level, but has proven to get value if you draw into enough of them.

Combo
There is Food Chain with Squee, the Immortal, but honestly the Food Chain is more for just sacrificing creatures to get more colored mana. There are plenty of disposable creatures with that do most of their job with ETB effects.

I've now stayed away from infinite bounce combos, becuase well you just don't need it. If Animar is on 3 counters, then basically thats all you need.

Lands and Mulligans
There are 37 lands which is a lot, but I've found the deck does not mulligan all that well. Often in other decks, low land starting hands are supplimented with fast mana and early turn plays to get around missing land drops.
But in a deck that has no early turn plays you really just need to be able to hit your land drops, and so you want a starting hand with probably 3 lands at least.
I do keep 2 lander hands sometimes (forced to because already mulled probably), but you are hoping to draw a land in the first 3 draws, and sometimes that just doesn't happen. Its likely that you are not going to be able to keep up and I'll just concede if I miss the third land drop.
There a lot of the play additional land cards and also off top of library, so a high land count also rewards you with these types of interaction.



Keruga, the Macrosage // Animar, Soul of Elements

Companion

Untappers

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Last edited by darrenhabib 3 years ago, edited 6 times in total.

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Mookie
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Post by Mookie » 3 years ago

Hmm, interesting. I briefly contemplated running Keruga as a companion for my own deck, but decided against it - I felt that getting the first few counters on Animar quickly was too important. Very interesting to see this build though - my own build has a bunch of cheap creatures, which I've needed to balance out by running a ton of card draw and other card advantage (ranging from Elvish Visionary to Beast Whisperer to Sphinx of Uthuun).

Playing Keruga flips that dynamic - you can play out whatever you want beforehand, then refill with Keruga. Guaranteed access to a big draw spell also means you can cut the other card draw and add other utility. Or, as you have, a big pile of clones. I have noticed that I tend to enjoy the games where I either don't play out Animar immediately or it gets killed quickly - in other words, the games where I need to play a more midrangey strategy instead of going for a quick win. May be worth trying this dynamic out sometime. At the very least, I've been meaning to give Keruga a slot in the 99, so I'll see how things go from there.

One nit: Stone-Seeder Hierophant is a human, and thus not a legal target for Parcelbeast (or other mutate creatures).

...this has also reminded me that I should give Oakhame Adversary a shot, since I keep seeing it pop up in lists.

Also: any consideration for Maelstrom Wanderer over Animar? I suppose Wanderer is already effectively a draw engine, so it won't benefit from Keruga quite as much as Animar.

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

Mookie wrote:
3 years ago
Hmm, interesting. I briefly contemplated running Keruga as a companion for my own deck, but decided against it - I felt that getting the first few counters on Animar quickly was too important. Very interesting to see this build though - my own build has a bunch of cheap creatures, which I've needed to balance out by running a ton of card draw and other card advantage (ranging from Elvish Visionary to Beast Whisperer to Sphinx of Uthuun).

Playing Keruga flips that dynamic - you can play out whatever you want beforehand, then refill with Keruga. Guaranteed access to a big draw spell also means you can cut the other card draw and add other utility. Or, as you have, a big pile of clones. I have noticed that I tend to enjoy the games where I either don't play out Animar immediately or it gets killed quickly - in other words, the games where I need to play a more midrangey strategy instead of going for a quick win. May be worth trying this dynamic out sometime. At the very least, I've been meaning to give Keruga a slot in the 99, so I'll see how things go from there.

One nit: Stone-Seeder Hierophant is a human, and thus not a legal target for Parcelbeast (or other mutate creatures).

...this has also reminded me that I should give Oakhame Adversary a shot, since I keep seeing it pop up in lists.

Also: any consideration for Maelstrom Wanderer over Animar? I suppose Wanderer is already effectively a draw engine, so it won't benefit from Keruga quite as much as Animar.
The deck still functions perfectly fine without Animar, as it still has lots of ramp type cards, but an early Animar unchalleged does run away with the game.
I've avoided big Eldrazi and too many high costed cards, as I just didn't want Animar to be the central focus.

Ahh that damn human thing gets me every time. I'll just cut Stone-Seeder Hierophant. I was looking forward to that :P
I'll just run Bane of Progress instead, my deck is light on interaction.

I like the fact that I at the very least have a Turn 3 play with Animar, as sometimes mulls don't line up, and I've mentioned you can't really afford to mull many times, as you really want a 3 land hand, and if you have all 4 or more cmc in opener, then you are kind of just forced to keep it.
So Maelstrom Wanderer isn't really the commander I'm looking for.

I had a look at your list and I feel the biggest things I lose out on are some of the nifty morph creatures like Rattleclaw Mystic, Den Protector, Willbender, Stratus Dancer, Ainok Survivalist.
Oh well there is a price to pay for Keruga, but as you say a lot of your deck is dedicated to draw, as you well know empting your hand often happens and without a way to draw cards it almost seems in vane to have that cost reduction.
Keruga has been the right sauce to just completly refill your hand.

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

I was watching a Standard stream with mutate at the forefront of the deck, and I decided that I might as well get in on the fun somewhat, even though its a limited for the commander formats 100 cards singleton.
I already had Sea-Dasher Octopus and Parcelbeast in the deck, so I've extended it to Auspicious Starrix, Gemrazer, Migratory Greathorn, Illuna, Apex of Wishes.

Been loving the clone effects, so Altered Ego is another one I can play.

I've never once cast Song of Creation, just never seemed to have appropraite window. I guess with Keruga, the Macrosage I just always have access to fuel.


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