Profiling Prime Speaker Vannifar in Commander
Welcome to our Commander Deck Tech series! Today we focus on the new leader of the Simic Combine, Prime Speaker Vannifar. While being a newer card as of the making of this article, Vannifar has claimed a place in my heart since I first sleeved the deck! Vannifar is perfect for a spotlight as it can be built a lot of different ways. Most decks will have the similar Birthing Pod-style chains, but outside of that, Vannifar has endless possibilities. This article is here to show you just ONE of the many ways to build the Elf Ooze Wizard, so please feel free to make your Vannifar build your own and follow along as we go over the goals for the deck and common ways of playing. The list I chose to spotlight today will run you about $580.
Prime Speaker Vannifar was eye catching due to its similarity to Birthing Pod, a card that has banned in Modern for years at this point. With Vannifar, we are able to tap her, sacrifice a creature, and go find a better one. Simple enough. While that may seem good on it’s own if we are trying to be fair, it can be even more abusable if we are going to be running artifacts and enchantments that will allow us to trigger her ability more than one time in a turn by untapping her, letting us chain through different creatures on our turns.
Thankfully, we can find a creature to fill every possible role we could want. We have a toolbox of creatures that can answer various permanents, creatures that untap Vannifar and keep our chain going, creatures that can be worth two sacrifices with mechanics like Undying or Persist and big scary bombs like Woodfall Primus or Craterhoof Behemoth. If that sounds fun to you, let’s get right into the decklist (if not, good luck finding a deck that is more enjoyable to play than this beauty)!
Gameplan
So, our first couple turns are going to look to play mana dorks, in order to get Vannifar out as fast as possible, while pairing her with an enabler of some sorts. Lightning Greaves and Thousand-Year Elixir gives Haste and can act as protection or an untap. Panharmonicon makes whatever we tutor up doubly potent! Once we can help Vannifar, things get out of control.
We can try to set up a menacing board or you can try to put together some infinite nonsense with Palinchron or Peregrine Drake, Deadeye Navigator and a way to use the infinite mana like Staff of Domination. The main cards to keep in mind are your untappers that keep the chain going. Your biggest targets will be Scryb Ranger, Pestermite, Deceiver Exarch, Bounding Krasis, Breaching Hippocamp, and Great Oak Guardian.
Drawbacks
I’m not sure if you have noticed yet, but Vannifar is a major piece in our deck. If someone happens to keep destroying her or keeps interfering with Vannifar’s ability, that will slow us down tremendously, which is why we run cards to help solve that. Glen Elendra Archmage is a great example of something that can help protect Vannifar and allow us to continue getting value creatures onto and off of the board. With her counter ability, and her persist, we are able to counter two noncreature spells with just two blue mana, which is great value. Glen Elendra Archmage is even handy while chaining through creatures because it represents two four drops to Vannifar away.
But let’s say that our commander keeps getting bothered by removal such as Banishing Light, we run cards such as Woodfall Primus and Acidic Slime to deal with permanents answers to her. And if it is a creature that is interfering or being threatening, such as Banisher Priest or Atraxa, Praetors' Voice, we have answers in the form of Man-o’-War and Sower of Temptation to deal with those creatures. So yes, this deck can be stopped for a turn or two, but we will have answers.
Win Conditions
The win conditions in this deck are very straight forward. Creatures, big creatures. Our main creatures that I seem to finish people off with are Avenger of Zendikar, Ulvenwald Hydra, and Craterhoof Behemoth. People seem to think that we will not have a couple creatures out at more than one time, because we will be continuously sacrificing them to Vannifar, but that is not the case. Cards like Woodfall Primus and Greenwarden of Murasa give us value when they die, Avenger of Zendikar allows us to make an army of creatures upon entering the battlefield based on the amount of lands we have, and with cards like Wood Elves, Coiling Oracle, and Farhaven Elf, we will have a lot of lands.
Ulvenwald Hydra is just an overall good card, that gets massive over time, and can serve as a real punisher to the players who don’t have the removal for the Hydra. And Craterhoof Behemoth is a card we would like to get out late game when we have an established board state, and will pump up all of our creatures for a finishing blow to a player or two. But, we will not win the game if we do not allow our board state to build, if we use Vannifar’s ability too much without gaining incremental value, we may not have enough time to build a board state for our opponent’s responses, and it could cost us the game. So when playing this deck, keep board state in mind and don’t forget to plan a few turns ahead when using Vannifar’s ability.
Conclusion
Well, there you have it. Prime Speaker Vannifar EDH! The main thing that I want to stress is that this deck list is not the best, and is certainly not the worst. My most favorite thing about Vannifar as a commander is that the deck is so open to changes and manipulation based on playstyle and preference, and one change can make the deck play totally different or add a whole new dimension. There are so many valuable creatures that can be put into Vannifar , and these are just my favorites and what I see suit this list the best, and this will vary from player to player. I highly suggest that if you are interested in buying this deck, that you make your own tweaks to it, and experiment on what works best for you, as I did for myself. I highly recommend Vannifar as an EDH commander and I am excited to see where the decklists for her go. Have a great night, I hope you guys enjoyed!
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