Gyrus Hydra Tribal

Commander / EDH* Aggro BRG (Jund) Counters Tribal

crash328

Land (37)

• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Canyon Slough
• 1x Cinder Glade
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Fire-Lit Thicket
• 1x Foreboding Ruins
• 3x Forest
• 1x Game Trail
• 1x Graven Cairns
• 1x Jund Panorama
• 1x Karplusan Forest
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 3x Mountain
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Rootbound Crag
• 1x Savage Lands
• 1x Sheltered Thicket
• 1x Smoldering Marsh
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 3x Swamp
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Woodland Cemetery

Artifact (5)

• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Golgari Signet
• 1x Gruul Signet
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Sol Ring

Creature (27)

• 1x Apocalypse Hydra
• 1x Aquastrand Spider
• 1x Armorcraft Judge
• 1x Corpsejack Menace
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Genesis Hydra
• 1x Hooded Hydra
• 1x Hydra Broodmaster
• 1x Hydra Omnivore
• 1x Imperial Recruiter
• 1x Kalonian Hydra
• 1x Khalni Hydra
• 1x Lifeblood Hydra
• 1x Managorger Hydra
• 1x Metallic Mimic
• 1x Mistcutter Hydra
• 1x Molten Hydra
• 1x Oran-Rief Hydra
• 1x Primordial Hydra
• 1x Protean Hydra
• 1x Reyhan, Last of the Abzan *f-etch*
• 1x Rishkar, Peema Renegade
• 1x Savageborn Hydra
• 1x Ulvenwald Hydra
• 1x Vastwood Hydra
• 1x Whiptongue Hydra
• 1x Winding Constrictor

Instant (8)

• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Harrow
• 1x Inspiring Call
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Commander (1)

Enchantment (11)

• 1x Colossal Majesty
• 1x Doubling Season
• 1x Durable Handicraft
• 1x Greater Good
• 1x Hardened Scales
• 1x Mana Flare
• 1x Path of Discovery
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Prismatic Omen
• 1x Retreat to Kazandu
• 1x Zendikar Resurgent

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Banefire
• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Decimate
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Maelstrom Pulse
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Vandalblast

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Nissa, Voice of Zendikar

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Sideboard

Instant (7)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Guttural Response
• 1x Naturalize
• 1x Putrefy
• 1x Vraska's Contempt
• 1x Windgrace's Judgment

Sorcery (5)

• 1x Death Cloud
• 1x Dreadbore
• 1x Regrowth
• 1x Torment of Hailfire
• 1x Wheel of Fortune

Creature (2)

• 1x Acidic Slime
• 1x Reclamation Sage

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Lord Windgrace

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Maybeboard

Creature (4)

• 1x Crystalline Crawler
• 1x Kresh the Bloodbraided
• 1x Walking Ballista
• 1x Winding Constrictor

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Flameshadow Conjuring
• 1x Greater Good
• 1x Parallel Lives

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Okay so I won't lie, I ADORE the hydra creature type. Their design, both from an artwork and gameplay perspective is fun, and efficient. Since their mana costs are flexible, it means they're formidable at any point in the game as long as you have the mana to play them. No drawing a weak two dropper turn 6 when you need a beater. No nine mana bomb drawn turn two when you just want a body on board. No matter when you cast one, they scale to the game and your mana base. I'm also a big fan of the jund color shard and the spells those three colors give you access to. So I'm Stoked to build a hydra based Jund deck with Gyrus, The Waker of Corpses at the helm. The core concept of the deck is to ramp up your mana base and then get as many mana doublers down as possible so you can invest large amounts of mana into the x cost hydras. The deck also centers around +1/+1 counter support as most Hydras power is based on their +1/+1 counters so any spells that bolster them or benefit the creatures with the counters are great to have. Ive play tested it a bunch and best case scenario, you can be swinging double strike or trampling 22/22's as early as turn 5 or 6.The whole deck revolves around a single word:More

MORE MANA The more mana you have, the bigger you can make you hydras. You've got your standard green land ramp Kodama's Reach , Cultivate , Harrow and the like, your basic mana rock ensemble Golgari Signet Sol Ring Rakdos Signet Gruul Signet and Commander's Sphere , along with some mana fixing/ land type manipulators Farseek Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth Prismatic Omen to ensure that even though the vast majority of the deck is green, you wont be without the other colors you need. I prefer omen to chromatic lantern as changing all lands to all basic land types helps out a lot with cards like coffers or the lands that check to see what kind of basic lands you have and how many. Then your have your mana doublers, to grow your x costers to mammoth proportions. Zendikar Resurgent Mana Flare Cabal Coffers , anything to stretch those lands out.

MORE COUNTERS While the Hydra tribe may not have received direct support cards like goblins, merfolk, or elves, they benefit tremendously from the many +1/+1 counter support cards in recent years. Metallic Mimic can give any hydra coming in an additional counter on the way in, Rishkar, Peema Renegade can make your hydras mana dorks, Reyhan, Last of the Abzan will make sure no counter goes to waste Armorcraft Judge refreshes your hand, Hardened Scales Retreat to Kazandu and Durable Handicraft give everyone bonus counters, as does Path of Discovery along with fetching you a couple lands along the way. Doubling Season Corpsejack Menace DOUBLE your counters and Aquastrand Spider give your creatures with counters the ability to deal with flyers they many not normally be able to deal with on their own and Inspiring Call can protect them as well as draw you cards. Finally Nissa, Voice of Zendikar is a great source of counters and chump blockers in a pinch

MORE CARDS What commander player doesn't want to draw tons of cards? The deck tends to use setup cards to get additional cards, rather than just play a "draw x cards" instant or sorcery, though the deck does use Harmonize just to get a few extra cards. Phyrexian Arena Colossal Majesty and Zendikar Resurgent help to get you an extra one or two draws a turn to ensure you don't run out of gas. In case of emergencies the previously mentioned Inspiring Call can save your team and give you a few extra cards. I highly recommend holding onto that card or saving a Eternal Witness to get it back as its easily one the best tempo cards in your arsenal. Finally some of our creatures have card draw stapled on like Armorcraft Judge or Lifeblood Hydra .

MORE DEAD THINGS Sadly not all of our problems can be solved by beating them over the head with a beefy monster, thankfully Jund colors have us covered with removal. In terms of board wipes, Damnation is a solid all around wrath effect, Blasphemous Act is a wipe that, once your hydras get big enough can survive and gets cheaper the more things there are in play, same can go for Toxic Deluge . Finally, for the people running a lot of artifacts Vandalblast can ruin their day and mana fixers. In terms of spot removal Assassin's Trophy is in a league of its own, along with solid value removal in Maelstrom Pulse and Decimate who get you great disruption for your mana investment. And Hero's Downfall and Krosan Grip round out the removal arsenal.

MORE UTILITYFinally we round out the deck with utility cards. Worldly Tutor , Vampiric Tutor , and Demonic Tutor help us grab whatever card or creature we need at a moment's notice. Banefire is a great buen spell/ alternate win condition you can dump your large amounts of mana into. Since most hydras have a base power of 0, Imperial Recruiter can tutor up a large portion of our Hydras, and is a great reanimation target for Gyrus to use. Eternal Witness lets us get back important cards. And we have Vexing Shusher . There is no worse feeling than dumping 10+ mana into a hydra just to have a resident blue player counter it. The shusher grants protection from this problem for the low cost of a single mana.

Top Ranked	Achieved #68 position overall 5 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	13 - 1 Mythic Rares 55 - 7 Rares 16 - 6 Uncommons 7 - 1 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.11
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Cat Warrior 2/2 G, Copy Clone, Hydra */* G, Morph 2/2 C, Plant 0/1 G, Snake 1/1 G