Breaching Hippocamp
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Dandan Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Judge's Tower Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pauper Legal
Pauper Duel Commander Legal
Pauper EDH Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Breaching Hippocamp

Creature — Horse Fish

Flash

When this enters the battlefield, untap another target creature you control.

wallisface on None

1 year ago

I think two things can be going on here.

  • It sounds like you're playing against decks that are much-more expensive than your own decks, which will generally mean your opponents have access to stronger cards. If your local meta doesn't have a wide-range of players, and everyone is splashing more cash, then it will quickly become an uphill fight, and it might be worth trying to find a more accommodating meta where players are using similar budgets to yourself.

  • Regardless of deck costs, it sounds like you're wanting janky cards to perform waaay better than they should be. Using your NeoPod deck as an example, there is a plethora of really suboptimal cards here (Breaching Hippocamp, Cavalier of Gales, Undercover Operative etc etc), as well as a really awkward mana curve (having no turn-1 plays immediately puts you behind the opponent, also your mana curve requires a large amount of lands in play, but you've only got 19). There are MUCH stronger things you can do for that money-investment. So you may find that even in a less-cash-splashy meta, your decks would still struggle. I think your brewing needs some work, and considerations towards the meta you're playing in, optimal card choices (for your budget), and a working mana-curve.

It seems to me that really you're building for a casual/kitchen-table environment, and then wanting this to be able to compete competitively. I would suggest if you're wanting to strengthen your decks, to reach out here and get feedback on the one you're wanting to improve on, with budget-restrictions in-mind.

zapyourtumor on Yasova Dragonclaw

2 years ago

I don't really see why you should be running Breaching Hippocamp if you aren't running Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or the Prime Speaker Vannifar combo lines. Both of those cards are pretty good in a Yasova deck anyways (Kiki inf combos with Zealous Conscripts and Coercive Recruiter , while Vannifar is a good sac outlet for stolen creatures) so maybe you could find some room for them.

TriusMalarky on

3 years ago

The problem is that toolboxes are slow. They take a lot of time to get into gear.

I mean, Vannifar on t3 can win on turn 4 in Modern. I think even in Pioneer it can do a lot:

t1 Elvish Mystic

t3 Vannifar

t4 turn Mystic into Corridor Monitor, untap Vannifar. Sac monitor to grab Renegade Rallier which nabs Monitor to untap Vannifar. Sac Rallier to get Breaching Hippocamp and untap Vannifar. Sac Monitor for another Rallier and then another Hippocamp. Sac a hippocamp for Prophet of Kruphix.

From there there's a ton you can do. You can probably put half your deck into play at that point if you do it right.

However... that's not near fast enough. It's easy to get a removal spell and blow Vannifar up right before the opponent untaps to combo off with it.

MollyMab on

3 years ago

The cards you are saying aren't tool box cards and are in fact bad. If I was trying to build a pioneer toolbox I would be leaning on a specific engine to enabler the toolbox repeatedly, not a single use spell that makes stuff mana inefficent. Dont play single use tutors.

Bring to Light is good because it gets and casts the spell which makes it more mana efficent. It is any cmc 5 or less spell in your deck. Compare to Grim Tutor where you are tacking 3 mana, some life and an extra point of interaction onto a spell.

Enigmatic Invocation is a pod esque effect so lets you play around counters and generate value at the end of your turn. The enchantments are more resilient to removal so you can play them out and pod them when needed.

Eldritch Evolution and Neoform do fetch creatures but you don't seem to understand the value of creatures in Pioneer. If I was playing Eldritch Evolution I would play cards like Reclamation Sage, Ravenous Chupacabra, Siege Rhino and Duskwatch Recruiter  Flip. A mix of powerful value creatures, well costed ETB effects and strong bodies. These are better than instants and sorceries as they both threaten life, remove resources or trade 2 for 1 more easily.

Prime Speaker Vannifar has a lot of podding potential as you can turn a 2 drop into a 5 drop with cards like Breaching Hippocamp, Bounding Krasis and clone effects. This gives you both the ability to see a lot of your deck and pull out specific creatures. Fiend Artisan is similar but is a better threat and allows you to skip cmcs by paying mana. Yisan Chord is slower but doesnt have a cost besides mana.

So yeah. Basically. You want your tutors to be engines or provide cost efficency. Or your answers to be extra flexible like creatures and playable on their own. No more watcher of the dead

TriusMalarky on Sultai Yisan, the Wanderer Bard

3 years ago

Fun tools with Yisan:

SaberTech on Animar, Soul of Combos | Animar cEDH

3 years ago

Hi. Saw you asking for advice on the Animar Discord but didn't want to clog up the channel so I figured I'd leave some comments here. I'll try to focus on more budget friendly changes since you already know about the more expensive recommendations.

The first thing that stands out to me is that you've doubled down on a lot of redundancy of similar effects to make your combo options more consistent. Since you don't have Imperial Recruiter and Weird Harvest, I can see why you would do that for a more casual meta. What has happened though is that you have filled up slots that would normally go to the other cards that help Animar function faster. A number of cards could be trimmed out to put in important lower-curve cards.

To start with, you actually have too many combos in the deck that are clogging up cards slots. You already have Ancestral Statue + Walking Ballista, which is Animar's bread and butter. Competitive decks generally focus on assembling that as quickly as possible and protecting the combo.

The typical secondary combo line in cEDH Animar is the Kiri-Onna loop, but that requires you to put a lot of money into your mana base to make sure nearly all you lands produce blue mana for maximum efficiency, so lets skip that for now.

Another backup combo is Barrin, Master Wizard/Temur Sabertooth + Dockside Extortionist, which you already have. Barrin is generally favoured because of its versatility, but the Sabertooth works too and the combo can potentially produce infinite mana without Animar. The combo works well in the cEDH meta because of all the cheap mana rocks and enchantments that get played, but there's a chance it won't be as consistent in more casual metas.

In addition to the main combos, you often see Purphoros, God of the Forge as a backup kill condition. Since you have that too you are fairly well set for win-conditions.

On top of that though, you also currently have the Kiki/Twin combo package, Cloudstone Curio with a couple morph creatures and eldrazi, Deadeye Navigator + Peregrine Drake + Acidic Slime, and Oracle/Labman to win by decking off of "enchantress" effects like Beast Whisperer. You honestly don't need all of that. Some people may run Thassa's Oracle as an option for when damage might not win the game, but the rest could be heavily trimmed to make room for other important ramp and interaction.

So, cards to cut:

Deadeye Navigator is an easy cut. The higher cmc creatures clog up opening hands and force more mulligans. Cloudstone Curio can't be tutored for in your list, which makes it unreliable. Taking that out makes Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger unwanted. That leads to taking out Nettle Drone and Thought Harvester because they are just redundant effects that you already get with Ballista and Purphoros. Laboratory Maniac can come out because it will generally be a more fragile Thassa's Oracle. You could take the oracle out too because there are ways to just bounce and kill with Ballista, even when you are being forced to draw cards off of Glimpse of Nature or Beast Whisperer. I can see why you might want to leave that one in though.

The Kiki/twin package takes up a bunch of slots with cards that don't really do a whole lot on their own except for Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, which some people think is too unwieldy to cast consistently because of the RRR in its casting cost. Splinter Twin isn't tutorable in the deck, so it's unreliable. Bounding Krasis and Breaching Hippocamp are just redundant bodies that don't even have the same versatility in their effect that Pestermite and Deceiver Exarch, and even those can be a little lack-luster.

If you aren't looking to take all the unnecessary combos out, I can see leaving some of the Kiki stuff in as a 2-card combo that isn't reliant on Animar. Just Kiki, Pestermite, and Deceiver Exarch on their own is enough. If you want to double down on it a bit though, you can consider putting in Zealous Conscripts. With the Conscripts, you can open up a 1 turn combo line with Vannifar.

Other cards worth cutting are Guardian Project (can't be tutored or cost-reduced), Soul of the Harvest (expensive and Primordial Sage is better), Vigean Graftmage (don't have enough +1/+1 counter synergies for this to be worth the slot), Farhaven Elf (better off with a 1 CMC mana dork), Solemn Simulacrum (better off with a 1 CMC mana dork), Tidal Barracuda (it may protect you from counterspells on your turn, put there is just too much risk with letting your opponents cast all their stuff at instant speed on every other turn). There are other cards that could be cut, but those are the ones that really stand out.

To replace the cards you take out, you'll be wanting the 1 cmc mana dorks and mana acceleration that was recommended on Discord, some more card draw/cantrip creatures like Mulldrifter and Generous Patron, and some cheap/free counterspells.

Anyway, I know this is a long wall of text but I hope the feed back helps give you a place to start making tweaks to your deck. And, of course, the people on the Animar Discord are always happy to offer advice.

TheVectornaut on Blue Green Something

3 years ago

I love taking a pile of cards and seeing what you can turn it into! I don't know which cards you have or what budget you have for acquiring new ones, but I'll list some cheap suggestions I have for a variety of archetypes you could pursue.

1) Simic ramp: Already goes well with Air Elemental, Archetype of Endurance, Oakgnarl Warrior, Overgrown Battlement, Yavimaya Wurm, Simic Keyrune. Some inclusions might be Llanowar Elves, Axebane Guardian, Coiling Oracle, Maraleaf Pixie, Beanstalk Giant, Terra Stomper, Lorthos, the Tidemaker. The goal is to accelerate into big threats.

2) U/G unblockable: Already goes well with Marang River Prowler, Downpour, Giant Growth, Might of the Masses, Aqueous Form, Coastal Piracy, Turntimber Grove. Some inclusions might be Curious Obsession, Daring Saboteur, Mist-Syndicate Naga, Ohran Viper, Trygon Predator, Distortion Strike. The goal is to get value from hitting with unblocked creatures.

3) U/G tempo/control: Already goes well with Breaching Hippocamp, Cloaked Siren, Mist Raven, Fog, Negate, Unsummon, Voyage's End, Claustrophobia. Some inclusions might be Vapor Snag, Dissolve, Mana Leak, AEtherling, Delver of Secrets  Flip, Devastation Tide. The goal is to deny the opponent their things while playing tricky threats of your own.

I also see cards in here that could work with mono green Assault Formation, simic +1/+1 synergy, or flying tribal, so you have a lot of options. As a sidenote, I'd also recommend upping your land count to about 24 while you have so many 5+ cost cards in the deck. Anyway, good luck!

FluffyArsonist on Vannifar Ladder

4 years ago

Zwolfe64 as has been said, for consistency, but also because you need to have certain cards inside the deck itself. if you end up with two Breaching Hippocamp in hand, for example, you'll not be able to perform the combo.

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