Proper Hydra-tion [Primer]

Commander / EDH Aristocrats Counters Hydra Sacrifice UBRG

IdioticYsgard

Creature (27)

• 1x Apocalypse Hydra
• 1x Bloodhall Ooze
• 1x Brawn
• 1x Champion of Lambholt
• 1x Chasm Skulker
• 1x Evolution Sage
• 1x Feral Hydra
• 1x Gargos, Vicious Watcher
• 1x Gyre Sage
• 1x Hangarback Walker
• 1x Hooded Hydra
• 1x Hungering Hydra
• 1x Hydra Broodmaster
• 1x Hydra Omnivore
• 1x Lifeblood Hydra
• 1x Managorger Hydra
• 1x Mistcutter Hydra
• 1x Oran-Rief Hydra
• 1x Primordial Hydra
• 1x Sage of Hours
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Savageborn Hydra
• 1x Scourge of Skola Vale
• 1x Vastwood Hydra
• 1x Vigor
• 1x Winding Constrictor
• 1x Xathrid Demon

Artifact (6)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Font of Mythos
• 1x Lifecrafter's Bestiary
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sword of the Animist

Land (39)

• 1x Bonders' Enclave
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 17x Forest
• 1x Hollow Trees
• 2x Island
• 1x Jungle Hollow
• 1x Karn's Bastion
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Rugged Highlands
• 1x Savage Lands
• 3x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Mystery
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Terrain Generator
• 1x Vivid Crag
• 1x Vivid Creek
• 1x Vivid Marsh

Sorcery (15)

• 1x Animist's Awakening
• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Chandra's Ignition
• 1x Crash Through
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Final Parting
• 1x Give / Take
• 1x Harmonize
• 1x Innocent Blood
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Rampant Growth
• 1x Spread the Sickness
• 1x Wheel of Fate

Commanders (2)

Instant (7)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Bedevil
• 1x Bioshift
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Inspiring Call
• 1x Repeal
• 1x Solidarity of Heroes

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Colossal Majesty
• 1x Hardened Scales
• 1x Unbound Flourishing
• 1x Zendikar Resurgent

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Maybeboard

Creature (2)

• 1x Fertilid
• 1x Mindless Automaton

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Hazardous Conditions

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Evolutionary Leap

Instant (1)

• 1x Heroic Intervention

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A Hydra tribal EDH deck that tries to use the +1/+1 counters for more than just stomping.

"Standard" win con

First, let's talk about how our opponents will usually expect us to win. Big stompy Hydras smashing face! And sometimes you just wanna stomp some face with giant Hydras. Luckily, we have some ways to make that viable listed below:

• Brawn + Final Parting : While putting a card in your graveyard is often a downside, we have Brawn to grab and dump into our graveyard. Since we always have a Forest, this gives all our creatures Trample in a way that is difficult to answer.
• Crash Through : Not as good as Brawn, but a decent way to jam through some damage.
• Champion of Lambholt : Once we pile some counters on her, our opponents are unlikely to be able to block our giant Hydras.

Counter Culture

Let's talk about +1/+1 counters. Most of the time, these are simply a way to make a creature stronger that are lost when the creature they are on leaves the battlefield. This is especially true for our hydras, whose power us usually equal to the number of +1/+1's on them. However, there are many cards that use +1/+1's more like a resource, similar to life, mana, or energy counters ( Fertilid for example). There are also cards that you sac creatures to, and the effect is based on that sac'd creatures power/toughness ( Fling ). In this deck, we consider +1/+1's as two different resources: "counters," which is when the quantity of counters matters, and "creature power/toughness (P/T)," when a creatures P/T matters. Now that we see our counters as resources, we can look at the mana cost to generate them, compare efficiency, and evaluate our abilities as it relates to mana investment.

Our Commanders

Enter our primary commander, Reyhan, Last of the Abzan . His ability allows us to essentially move +1/+1's from creature to creature. This has unique affects on our two "resources":

• +1/+1's now represent P/T independent of creatures. As long as we have multiple creatures, we can sac that P/T to a card, and simply move it to another creature to be sac'd again.
• If a card has a difficult way of acquiring counters, we can now just sac a creature and move our counters to it.

What about Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist ? I'd love to say I'm not just using him to get access to red and blue, but in all honesty that is exactly what I am doing. I wanted access to blue and red so I could run Apocalypse Hydra , Savageborn Hydra , and Sage of Hours , and he was $2 at the time. I almost never cast him since he buffs everyone. Kraum, Ludevic's Opus is the other Izzet option as of writing, and is worth considering if you want to actually cast both commanders.

Unusual Win Cons

Now we have some weird win cons in this deck that take our above theories to heart:

• Altar of Dementia + Combo with Hooded Hydra , Chasm Skulker , or Hangarback Walker : This one uses our reusable P/T resource quite well. Let's say I have Reyhan and Altar on the battlefield and (11) mana available. I use that mana to cast Hooded Hydra and declare X=9. Hydra resolves, and I sac it to Altar. Mill opponent #1 (9) cards. Hooded and Reyhan's triggers go on the stack at the same time. I resolve Hooded's trigger first, creating (9) 1/1 Snakes. Resolve Reyhan's trigger, putting (9) +1/+1's on Snake #1. Sac Snake #1 to Altar, milling same opponent (10) cards, Reyhan triggers, move counters to Snake #2. Repeat until all Snakes are sac'd, putting the counters finally on Reyhan. This will result in a total of 99 cards milled, which is an entire turn 0 EDH deck. Assuming 3 opponents and no mulligans, there is a total of 276 cards in your opponents libraries. If you can sink (17) mana into Hooded, you can mill (255) cards with this method, which mills out all 3 opponents on turn 7.
• Xathrid Demon + Combo with Primordial Hydra or Apocalypse Hydra : Another Example of using our P/T resource. Let's say we ramped well again and got to (12) mana with Reyhan on our battlefield. We cast Primordial Hydra and declare X=10. Primordial enters with (10) +1/+1's. At our next upkeep, both Xathrid and Primordial trigger. Resolve Primordial first, doubling the +1/+1's to (20). Resolve Xathrid, sac'ing Primordial and drain all opponents 20 life. Reyhan triggers, and we move the +1/+1's to Reyhan. Now we (hopefully) survive to next turn and Xathrid triggers on our upkeep, sac Reyhan, and drain everyone (23), in theory winning the game.

+1/+1 Synergies

We also have some cool effects that interact with +1/+1's that we can use to help our odd win cons:

• Sage of Hours : This one is epic. Imagine having a creature with a pile of counters, or a bunch of creature with a few counters. Sac them all, dumping the counters onto Sage, then sac all the counters to get multiple extra turns.
• Vigor : One of my favorite cards of all time. For each 1 point of damage dealt to your creatures, replace it with a +1/+1. This not only makes your creatures immune to damage, it turns damage into a counter generator! This makes our Blasphemous Act destroy opponents creatures while buffing ours by +13/+13.
• Gyre Sage : Another that can get out of control. The Evolve trigger goes off more than you'd think, and once you dump a bunch of counters from a hydra on it you can crank out some crazy hydras. It's also worth noting that even though I'm not running it now, Umbral Mantle equipped on this is an infinite mana combo when you get (4) +1/+1's on her.
• Give / Take Take is fantastic for drawings cards. Basically sac a creature to draw a pile of cards. The option to fuse them together is also quite handy.

Increased Efficiency

These cards help us reduce the cost of our counters by making more of them for little to no additional mana investment.

• Unbound Flourishing : Doubles the power of our X costed Hydras, effectively reducing our mana:+1/+1 ratio to 1:2. Apocalypse Hydra is especially good here. Cast it declaring X=5 for a total of (7) mana, Flourshing triggers doubling X to 10, apocalypse second ability triggers making it enter with 2X counters, meaning you get (20) +1/+1's. That is almost a 1:3 ratio.
• Winding Constrictor and Hardened Scales : Add an extra counter to each of our hydras. This goes great with Reyhan, since each of his triggers counts for this, meaning when we sac a creature with counters, we're effectively generating a bonus counter each time. This card is also especially good with Bloodhall Ooze , since each trigger is separate.
• Solidarity of Heroes : 2 mana to double a creatures counters, and can target multiple creatures at that same cost per creature. Imagine we have our Apocalypse Hydra from above at +20/+20. For (2) mana, he's now a +40/+40 and we have access to (40) counters.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 33 - 0 Rares 21 - 0 Uncommons 15 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.95
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Hydra */* G, Morph 2/2 C, Snake 1/1 G, Squid 1/1 U, Thopter 1/1 C
Folders	EDH Decks, test