MTG Animated Army Decklist: Unleash The Beasts!

MTG Animated Army Decklist? You’re basically talking about summoning a whole crew of creatures to take over the battlefield. It’s all about turning your lands and other stuff into a massive army of baddies, ready to wreck your opponent’s face.

Imagine summoning a whole horde of zombie soldiers or transforming your forests into a legion of tree-like warriors – that’s the vibe! But it’s not all about brute force, you’ve got to be smart about it. You need to pick the right cards, build a good strategy, and know when to strike.

Think of it as like playing a game of chess, but with a bunch of cool monsters instead of pawns. You gotta think about your moves, plan your attacks, and outsmart your opponent. It’s all about mastering the art of summoning and controlling your army to dominate the game.

Animated Army Decks in MTG

In the realm of Magic: The Gathering, “Animated Army” decks represent a strategic approach that leverages the power of creatures and enchantments to overwhelm opponents with a formidable army. These decks are built around the concept of turning non-creature permanents into powerful attacking forces, creating a battlefield advantage through sheer numbers and relentless pressure.

The Core Strategy

Animated Army decks revolve around the core strategy of transforming non-creature permanents, such as lands and artifacts, into creatures. This is achieved through the use of enchantments, instants, and sorceries that possess the ability to animate these permanents. The deck’s primary objective is to generate a massive army of creatures, often with impressive power and toughness, to overwhelm the opponent’s defenses and secure victory.

Key Cards and Mechanics

An Animated Army deck thrives on turning your creatures into powerful attackers and defenders. To achieve this, you’ll need a mix of cards that can bring your creatures to life, enhance their abilities, and equip them for battle. The foundation of this deck is built upon the powerful synergy between the “Animate” mechanic and the “Enchant” mechanic.

The Animate mechanic allows you to turn artifacts, lands, and other objects into creatures, while Enchant allows you to enhance the abilities of your creatures.

Animate

The “Animate” mechanic is essential to the strategy of an Animated Army deck. It enables you to turn your non-creature cards into powerful attackers and defenders. This mechanic is often found on enchantments, instants, and sorceries.

Animate Dead:This classic black enchantment allows you to bring a creature card from your graveyard back to the battlefield. It’s a powerful tool for reanimating key creatures or for creating a surprise attack.
Animate Artifact:This enchantment turns any artifact you control into a creature with power and toughness equal to its mana value. This card is particularly effective in decks with many artifacts, allowing you to turn your equipment into attackers.
Animate Land:This enchantment turns any land you control into a creature with power and toughness equal to its mana value. This card is useful for turning your lands into attackers or defenders, especially in the early game when you may not have many creatures.

Enchant

Enchantments play a crucial role in empowering your creatures and supporting your strategy.

Giant Growth:This enchantment increases the power of a creature by +3/+3. It’s a simple but effective way to boost your creature’s attack power.
Swiftfoot Boots:These boots grant a creature haste, allowing it to attack the turn it enters the battlefield. This is a great way to take advantage of your newly animated creatures.
Unflinching Courage:This enchantment gives a creature +1/+1 and grants it protection from a color of your choice. It’s a great way to protect your creatures from removal spells or to give them an edge in combat.

Equipment, Mtg animated army decklist

Equipment is a vital part of an Animated Army deck, as it provides a powerful way to enhance your creatures’ abilities.

Sword of Feast and Famine:This equipment gives a creature +2/+2 and lets you draw a card whenever it deals combat damage to a player. It’s a powerful tool for both offense and defense.
Loxodon Warhammer:This equipment gives a creature +3/+3 and trample. It’s a great way to make your creatures incredibly powerful attackers.
Lightning Greaves:These boots grant a creature haste and shroud. This is a great way to protect your creatures from removal spells and to give them the ability to attack immediately.

Deckbuilding Considerations

Crafting a winning Animated Army deck requires careful consideration of several key factors. This deck archetype revolves around creating a board presence through tokens and utilizing those tokens to overwhelm your opponent. However, to maximize the effectiveness of your army, you need to ensure a balanced deck with the right mix of cards.

Mana Curve

The mana curve refers to the distribution of your mana costs across your deck. A well-structured mana curve ensures you can play your key cards consistently and efficiently. In an Animated Army deck, you need to balance the cost of your token generators with the cost of your supporting cards.

You’ll need a good number of one and two-mana creatures to establish a strong early game presence. This allows you to generate tokens quickly and put pressure on your opponent from the start.
Cards that can produce multiple tokens, like Parallel Lives, Doubling Season, or Anointed Procession, are vital for snowballing your advantage.
Include some higher-cost cards like Cathartic Reunion, Smothering Tithe, or Emergent Ultimatumto close out the game or provide additional support for your army.

Card Draw

Card draw is essential for any deck, but it’s particularly important in an Animated Army deck. Since your strategy relies on generating tokens, you need to be able to keep up with the card advantage your opponent might gain through their own spells or creatures.

Include cards like Scroll Rack, Rhystic Study, Harmonize, or Tamiyo’s Journalto consistently replenish your hand and maintain momentum.
Cards like Inspiring Leaderand Thalia, Guardian of Thrabenprovide card advantage while also supporting your token strategy.
Cathartic Reunionand Emergent Ultimatumcan act as both card draw and powerful threats.

Removal and Board Wipes

While you’ll be focusing on generating a large army, you also need to be able to deal with your opponent’s threats. Removal spells and board wipes are crucial for maintaining control of the game.

Path to Exileand Swords to Plowsharesare excellent for dealing with single threats.
Wrath of Godand Damnationare powerful board wipes that can clear the way for your army to take over.
Counterspellscan protect your key cards and prevent your opponent from disrupting your strategy.

Popular Archetypes: Mtg Animated Army Decklist

Animated Army decks can be built in various ways, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Here are some of the most popular archetypes:

Mono-Green Aggro

This is the most straightforward and popular Animated Army archetype. It focuses on playing creatures early and aggressively, using cards like Beast Whispererand Elvish Mysticto accelerate mana production. The deck aims to overwhelm opponents with a flood of creatures, often utilizing cards like Overrunand Triumph of the Hordesto finish the game quickly.

Mono-Green Aggro decks are known for their speed and consistency, making them a strong choice in aggressive metas. However, they can be vulnerable to removal spells and board wipes, especially in the late game.

Example Decklist:
4x Elvish Mystic
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Beast Whisperer
4x Llanowar Tribe
4x Wild Nacatl
4x Scion of Oona
4x Overrun
4x Triumph of the Hordes
4x Forest

Gameplay Strategies

The Animated Army deck thrives on overwhelming the opponent with a relentless wave of creatures. To succeed, you need to master the art of maximizing your card advantage, controlling the board, and adapting to the ever-changing battlefield.

Maximizing Card Advantage

Card advantage is crucial for any deck, but it’s especially important in an Animated Army deck. You want to be able to consistently generate more creatures than your opponent, while also having enough mana to cast your spells and activate your abilities.

Building an MTG animated army decklist is all about strategy, not just brute force. You need to consider how each creature interacts with the others, how you’ll protect them, and what kind of win condition you’re aiming for. It’s like building a team of heroes, each with their own unique abilities.

It reminds me of the powerful message behind Choose Life Choose Words – that our choices have a ripple effect and that even small actions can have a big impact. Just like choosing the right cards for your deck, choosing the right words can make all the difference in building a powerful and cohesive strategy.

Utilize recursion:Cards like Animate Deadand Reanimatelet you bring back creatures from your graveyard, effectively doubling their impact. This can be a powerful way to maintain a board presence and keep your opponent on the defensive.
Capitalize on card draw:Cards like Harmonizeand Scroll Rackcan help you dig through your deck and find the key pieces you need to stay ahead of the curve.
Don’t be afraid to sacrifice:Cards like Grave Pactand Bloodthrone Vampireallow you to sacrifice your own creatures to gain advantages. While it may seem counterintuitive, this can often be a good way to gain life, draw cards, or even eliminate an opponent’s creature.

Controlling the Board

Winning in Magic is all about controlling the board. Your goal is to keep your opponent’s creatures at bay while simultaneously generating your own army.

Building an MTG animated army decklist is a lot like choosing the right colors for your outfit – you want a cohesive look that’s both powerful and stylish. You’ll need to decide on the best color combinations to bring your army to life, just like figuring out what colors go with your army green pants, which can be tricky depending on the shade of green.

Once you’ve got the colors down, you can start adding the creatures and spells that will make your army unstoppable.

Early game:Focus on deploying your creatures quickly and efficiently. Utilize cards like Gravecrawlerand Corpse Knightto create a quick threat.
Mid game:This is where your recursion and card draw really shine. Use your powerful creatures and spells to maintain control of the board and build a formidable army.
Late game:You should be aiming to finish the game by this point. If you’ve built a strong enough army, you can usually overwhelm your opponent with a final push.

Adapting to Opponents and Game States

Magic is a dynamic game, and you need to be able to adapt your strategy to the opponent and the current game state.

Against Aggro:The goal here is to survive the initial onslaught. Utilize removal spells like Doom Bladeand Path to Exileto eliminate key threats. Focus on building a strong defense with cards like Wall of Omensand Spirit of the Labyrinth.
Against Control:Control decks are all about slowing the game down. You need to find ways to break through their defenses and get your creatures onto the battlefield. Consider using cards like Grave Titanand Scion of Oonato generate multiple creatures and overwhelm their board presence.
Against Midrange:Midrange decks are a bit of a mix of both aggro and control. You need to be able to adapt to their strategies and play accordingly. Use your removal spells to clear the way for your creatures, and be prepared to make trades if necessary.

Advanced Techniques

Mastering the fundamentals of Animated Army decks is crucial, but to truly unlock their potential, you need to delve into advanced strategies and combos. These techniques go beyond simple creature synergies and focus on maximizing card advantage, recursion, and strategic decision-making to gain an edge over your opponents.

Card Advantage and Recursion

Card advantage is a key concept in Magic: The Gathering, and it represents the ability to draw more cards than your opponent, allowing you to have more options and resources available to you. Recursion, on the other hand, involves repeatedly bringing back cards from your graveyard or other zones to the battlefield or your hand, effectively extending their value and creating a cycle of resource generation.

In Animated Army decks, card advantage and recursion are particularly important because they allow you to replenish your hand and maintain a consistent stream of creatures to animate.

Creature Recursion:Cards like [[Reanimate]], [[Animate Dead]], and [[Living Death]] allow you to bring back powerful creatures from your graveyard to the battlefield, creating a constant threat and putting pressure on your opponent.
Card Draw:Cards like [[Scroll Rack]], [[Wheel of Fortune]], and [[Rhystic Study]] help you draw additional cards, giving you more options and potentially setting you up for powerful plays.
Recursion and Card Draw Synergies:Combining recursion and card draw can create powerful loops. For example, using [[Living Death]] to bring back a creature with [[Phyrexian Arena]] in your graveyard allows you to draw a card every turn, potentially creating a runaway card advantage situation.

High-Level Gameplay and Decision-Making

Advanced gameplay in Animated Army decks involves making strategic decisions that maximize your resources and minimize your opponent’s options. Here are some key considerations:

Creature Selection:Choosing which creatures to animate can be crucial. Prioritize creatures with strong abilities, evasion, or the potential to create a board state that your opponent can’t easily handle.
Timing:Timing is everything in Magic, and knowing when to activate abilities, play spells, and make attacks can be the difference between winning and losing. Consider your opponent’s potential threats and your own resources before making any decisions.
Opponent’s Strategy:Pay close attention to your opponent’s deck and strategies. Are they focused on creature removal, board wipes, or control? Adjust your gameplay accordingly to minimize their impact on your game plan.

Examples of Advanced Combos

The “Animate Dead” Combo:This combo involves using [[Animate Dead]] to bring back a creature with a strong ability, such as [[Worldspine Wurm]], and then using a card like [[Reanimate]] to bring back another creature. This creates a board state where your opponent is forced to deal with multiple threats simultaneously.
The “Living Death” Combo:This combo involves using [[Living Death]] to bring back all creatures from all graveyards to the battlefield. This can create a massive board presence and put your opponent on the defensive.

“The key to success in Animated Army decks is to understand the interplay between card advantage, recursion, and strategic decision-making. By mastering these concepts, you can unlock the full potential of your deck and dominate the battlefield.”

Meta Considerations

The ever-changing landscape of the Magic: The Gathering (MTG) competitive scene significantly influences the viability and effectiveness of any deck, including Animated Army strategies. Understanding the current meta and identifying decks that pose a threat or present favorable matchups is crucial for optimizing gameplay and deckbuilding decisions.

Meta Influences on Deckbuilding

The prevailing meta dictates which cards and strategies are most successful, shaping the deckbuilding process. For example, if aggressive strategies are prevalent, focusing on early game threats and fast mana development becomes paramount. Conversely, if control decks dominate the meta, incorporating countermagic and removal spells to disrupt opponents’ plans is essential.

Aggro Decks:Aggro decks prioritize fast damage output and aim to overwhelm opponents before they can establish a board presence. These decks often feature low-cost creatures with aggressive abilities and mana acceleration spells. Animated Army decks can struggle against aggressive decks, as they often lack early game defenses and rely on a slower build-up of resources.
Control Decks:Control decks focus on disrupting opponents’ plans and controlling the board state through removal spells, countermagic, and board wipes. These decks aim to stall the game and win through attrition. Animated Army decks can find success against control decks, as they can generate a large number of creatures that can overwhelm control decks’ removal options.
Midrange Decks:Midrange decks aim to balance aggression and control, seeking to develop a strong board presence while disrupting opponents’ plans. These decks often feature a mix of creatures, removal spells, and card draw. Animated Army decks can find success against midrange decks by generating a large number of creatures that can overwhelm opponents’ removal options.

MTG Animated Army Decklist: Unleash the Beasts!