Variable Power *PRIMER*

Commander / EDH Aggro Burn Midrange Multiplayer RG (Gruul)

NV_1980

Creature (23)

• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Fanatic of Rhonas
• 1x Gargos, Vicious Watcher
• 1x Goldvein Hydra
• 1x Kalonian Hydra
• 1x Kodama of the West Tree
• 1x Lifeblood Hydra
• 1x Managorger Hydra
• 1x Mossborn Hydra
• 1x Neheb, the Eternal
• 1x Neverwinter Hydra
• 1x Nexos
• 1x Nyxbloom Ancient
• 1x Ochre Jelly
• 1x Primordial Hydra
• 1x Savageborn Hydra
• 1x Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
• 1x Shivan Devastator
• 1x Steelbane Hydra
• 1x Stonecoil Serpent
• 1x Vexing Shusher
• 1x Voracious Hydra
• 1x Xenagos, God of Revels

Enchantment (10)

• 1x All Will Be One
• 1x Branching Evolution
• 1x Colossal Majesty
• 1x Doubling Season
• 1x Exploration
• 1x Greater Good
• 1x Mana Flare
• 1x Mana Reflection
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Unbound Flourishing

Land (35)

• 1x Bonders' Enclave
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Cinder Glade
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Fire-Lit Thicket
• 10x Forest
• 1x Game Trail
• 1x Kessig Wolf Run
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 6x Mountain
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Rootbound Crag
• 1x Sheltered Thicket
• 1x Skarrg, the Rage Pits
• 1x Spire Garden
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Temple of Abandon
• 1x Wooded Ridgeline
• 1x Yavimaya Hollow

Artifact (11)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Doubling Cube
• 1x Elementalist's Palette
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Ozolith, the Shattered Spire
• 1x Pyromancer's Goggles
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x The Great Henge
• 1x The Ozolith
• 1x Thran Dynamo

Commander (1)

Sorcery (16)

• 1x Animist's Awakening
• 1x Awaken the Woods
• 1x Banefire
• 1x Burn from Within
• 1x Clan Defiance
• 1x Crackle with Power
• 1x Decimate
• 1x Explosive Vegetation
• 1x Fanning the Flames
• 1x Finale of Devastation
• 1x Fireball
• 1x Hull Breach
• 1x Jaya's Immolating Inferno
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Red Sun's Zenith
• 1x Three Visits

Instant (4)

• 1x Comet Storm
• 1x Electrodominance
• 1x Momentous Fall
• 1x Worldly Tutor

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Welcome to Variable Power {R}{G}!

Hi there! Welcome to the primer of this Gruul Hydra, X-spell deck; commanded by Rosheen Meanderer. The Lorwyn Shadowmoor is home to a giantess shaman of considerable power. A collector of stories with a strong attunement to the weave. Every tale she hears she intuitively intertwines with ripples she experiences within the ocean of magic attuned to her very soul. This allows her to put into perspective all she hears with past-, present and even future events; shaping raw knowledge and feelings into prophecies. Her perspective however is so broad and all-encompassing, that almost nobody can understand her when she conveys this information. To most it would seem like the ramblings of a crazy being. Because of this, many tend to underestimate her. This is usually a very unwise thing to do, for there is a great deal of power in the knowledge she has access to. Power that seeps into her being from countless planes. When she chooses to manifest it, beings of unspeakable size and spells of indeterminate power spring to life and right now, they’ve all been brought to bear against you. This deck is meant to be played casually. It’s not meant to be used in a competitive fashion, but of course anyone is welcome to try! Feel free to comment on anything you (dis)like throughout this primer; hope you will enjoy it!

Why Rosheen?

Her mana ability is impressive; even if it can only be used to power x-spells. Her affiliation with the Gruul guild’s colors, grants access to some of the most notorious, powerful x-spells in MTG’s existence. Additionally, this guild offers many avenues to increase/double mana amounts. That’s enough to lay the groundwork for an interesting deck-idea. Let’s not beat around the bush; Rosheen is also a capable combatant and has a reasonable casting cost.

Strengths and Weaknesses/strong>

The following ten parameters have been used to determine the strength of the deck. For each, a score is allocated of either 5 (very good), 4 (good), 3 (mediocre), 2 (bad) or 1 (very bad); when totalized this score represents the power rating of the deck (maximum score is 50 points).

• Mana: indicates the availability of mana sources within the deck.
• Ramp: indicates the speed at which mana sources within the deck can be made available.
• Card Advantage: indicates availability of filter- and draw resources represented within the deck.
• Overall speed: indicates the deck’s potential for pace, based on resource availability and mana curve.
• Combo: indicates the measure of combo-orientation of the deck.
• Army: indicates the deck’s creature-army strength.
• Commander: indicates how much the deck is commander-oriented/dependent (less dependency is better).
• Interaction: indicates how much this deck can mess with opponents’ board states and turn-phases.
• Resilience: indicates whether the deck can prevent and take punches.
• Spellpower: indicates the availability and strength of high-impact spells.

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Mana: 5

Luckily, the deck’s commander is a fantastic mana-dork herself and due to her guild-affiliation she also has access to a choice cut of the best mana providers out there. Five additional dorks, four mana-doublers and five excellent mana-rocks provide additional energy-generation support. A number of the chosen cards have been added specifically because they’re more effective when applied to fueling X-spells.

Ramp: 3

When a deck features green (or white), land-fetching suddenly becomes a very feasible option to quickly increase land-count. This deck features six such options; one of them actually generates lands instead of fetching them.

Card Advantage: 2

This game cannot be played very effectively unless once every so often, one gets the opportunity to draw some more cards than one per turn. So some cards have been included to grant that option; four direct draw-, three ETB/LTB draw and one tutor.

Overall speed: 4

As Rosheen usually makes her appearance by turn three, the deck’s X-spells will start to become effective during this time as well. No matter whether this involves angry looking hydras or devastating damage spells; the opposition will be in for a bad time. Before this happens however, there’s plenty of resourcing available that can be applied in many, simple ways that makes this deck’s speed above average.

Combo: 1

Just a few minor combos; nothing super significant.

Army: 3

Though this deck’s army is not particularly large, well over half its creature-power depends completely on +1/+1 counters. Thus the creatures we do put onto the field, have a chance of being (or becoming) extraordinary large and thereby powerful. The army also features some great utility functions including mana enhancement, artifact/enchantment destruction and life-gain.

Commander: 4

It’s really enjoyable having Rosh on the battlefield, as the mana she provides is excellent and can be doubled easily within this deck (or even tripled in some cases). However, she’s not instrumental for victory perse as there’s more resources where she came from. However, she is dependable and especially during the early game grants significant energy advantage over the opposition.

Interaction: 1

One of the deck’s weaknesses. It does have a few minor destruction options and some non-combat pinging, but that’s about it.

Resilience: 2

The deck doesn’t really feature much that provides staying-power. Mostly, it just focuses on dealing as much damage as possible fast. It does contain some ways that prevent the opposition from countering spells, some hexproof, a bit of regeneration and even a little life-gain has been added.

Spellpower: 5

Heeeell yes! Spell-power galore! Obviously there’s a nice number of non-combat damage spells in here (twelve cards) along with some awesome mana doublers (three spells) and a smattering of others (including some decent destruction stuff).

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Total power score: 30

Granted, this deck needs a little room to operate, which can be tricky as it doesn’t have that many defensive measures available. When it does have this room though, even a little bit, it can come at you hard with creatures and spells that will be tough to match by other decks. Its army is moderately sized but lethal and its spells are powerful damage dealers that in some cases can end games outright.

General strategy

It’s pretty simple; gather oodles of mana-generating power and start breaking face with either powerful X-creatures (Hydras) OR damage-dealing spells. Use of the deck’s enchantments is important; give these priority in casting whenever you can as a number of these either double mana or greatly increase the deck’s damage-dealing potential. Be careful with the use of the deck’s permanent-removal options; it doesn’t have that many so only deal with opposing enchantments/artifacts that basically disable this deck or greatly empower an opponent’s deck.

Starting hand

At least three cards in the starting hand ought to be lands (or two lands and a cheap-to-cast rock like Arcane Signet or Sol Ring). Tit’s recommended not to start a game without this hand (even if one has to mulligan down to three cards). The ideal hand would also contain some additional ramp and/or low-cost draw options.

Early game

First thing to go for, is to get resourcing in order. In the ideal situation, start with the casting of mana dorks like Birds of Paradise, Bloom Tender, Nexos and/or Selvala, Heart of the Wilds. Ramp spells like Exploration and Three Visits will also be high on the priority list, as well as certain rocks like the ones mentioned in the previous section and Elementalist's Palette, which has tremendous generation potential. Early card-advantage opportunities will be jumped on as well. Cards like Colossal Majesty, Sensei's Divining Top and Sylvan Library will be cast as soon as they’re drawn into. While all this goes on, try to get Rosheen out as early as possible, given the tremendous mana boost she gives once present.

Mid- an End game

This phase starts as soon as it becomes beneficial to cast X-spells (the minimum requirement is being able to pump at least 6 into X; which will usually be available right after Rosheen enters the battlefield). In terms of X-spells that receive direct priority, are cards that either greatly expand casting abilities OR that have a control aspect to them. Examples include Animist's Awakening, Awaken the Woods and Steelbane Hydra. Next to these, priority is granted to spells that increase the size of the deck’s Hydras and the power of X-spells in general. Favorites amongst these include Branching Evolution, Doubling Season, Ozolith, the Shattered Spire and especially Unbound Flourishing, which seems to be almost tailor-made for this deck. Mana multiplication also helps on this front, in the form of Doubling Cube, Mana Flare, Mana Reflection and Nyxbloom Ancient. Once all this is present, other decks will be hard-pressed to match the sheer amount of mana that can be pumped into spells, allowing for the casting of insane manifestations of creatures like Neverwinter Hydra, Ochre Jelly, Primordial Hydra or spells like Comet Storm, Crackle with Power, Fireball and Jaya's Immolating Inferno.

Combos and synergies

• Ochre Jelly + Doubling Season: please … kill the Ochre Jelly! Season ensures that the Jelly won’t just return (as a token copy, but exactly as strong as when it died), but it will also generate an additional token; youch!

Card Choices

Lands

Reliable sources of mana, and some utility:

• Bonders' Enclave: an excellent draw resource in a deck featuring mostly large creatures.
• Cinder Glade/Fire-Lit Thicket/Game Trail/Rootbound Crag/Sheltered Thicket/Spire Garden/Stomping Ground/Temple of Abandon/Wooded Ridgeline: lands that provide Gruul mana which, depending on circumstances, enter the battlefield tapped or untapped. The best MTG has to offer on this front has been incorporated, except for the original dual lands which are outside most players’ price-range.
• Command Tower/Mana Confluence: the best mana-flexibility on offer!
• Hanweir Battlements  : an important haste enabler.
• Kessig Wolf Run/Skarrg, the Rage Pits: trample enablers for the assault force.
• Mikokoro, Center of the Sea: great draw enabler when stuck.
• Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx: this deck features enough permanents to really make this worthwhile.
• Yavimaya Hollow: one of the best utility lands; capable of regenerating creatures.

Mana and Ramp

The cards used to accelerate mana-availability:

• Animist's Awakening: an X-spell that lets one top-deck lands, while redistributing other found cards to the bottom of the library; not a bad deal at all!
• Arcane Signet: a favorite mana-rock next to Sol Ring; it’s cheap, versatile and easy to use.
• Awaken the Woods: incredibly cool land-generation spell, provided one can keep the tokens it generates alive.
• Birds of Paradise/Bloom Tender: being able to produce mana of any color with cards like these is such a treat!
• Doubling Cube: once enough mana can be produced, this piece of artistry doubles it!
• Elementalist's Palette: a very strong rock in this deck, as X-spells are cast on a regular basis.
• Exploration: one of the best turn-1 ramp cards in EDH.
• Explosive Vegetation/Nature's Lore/Three Visits: amongst the cheapest tutors for (non-basic) Forests and other lands.
• Kodama of the West Tree: most of the creatures in this deck can be considered modified, meaning it’s able to filter out basic lands in no-time.
• Mana Flare: yup, it drives up mana production across the table; but the chances of this deck benefiting more from that than the decks of others are pretty good.
• Mana Reflection: a stellar permanent for increasing mana production (though it’s such a shame that it doesn’t work with Neheb, the Eternal’s ability).
• Neheb, the Eternal: in a damage-focused deck like this, it’s such an incredible powerhouse; the amount of mana he generates during the post-combat main phase is simply staggering sometimes.
• Nexos: turns basic lands into excellent fuel-providers for X-spells.
• Nyxbloom Ancient: a scary creature with an even scarier mana-multiplication ability that turns all X-spells into annihilation-death-bombs.
• Pyromancer's Goggles: a little red-mana that can double instants/sorceries.
• Selvala, Heart of the Wilds: in a deck filled with insanely-powered creatures, this lady is one of the most welcome energy-sources that it can produce.
• Sol Ring: (almost) no EDH-deck should leave its home without this card.
• The Great Henge: mana resource, life gain, creature-enhancement and card-draw; all in one!
• Thran Dynamo: just a great rock for colorless mana that can be used for lots of stuff; including fuel for X-spells.

Card Advantage

What’s needed in order to draw, scry or tutor:

• Colossal Majesty: draw with a prerequisite that’s easily obtainable in a deck with creatures this strong.
• Finale of Devastation: search for a win-condition, and then proceed with an empowered attack that deals at least an additional 10 damage per attacking creature (provided it’s pumped enough).
• Greater Good/Momentous Fall: hydras can get powerful, so sacrificing them for draw based on their power when they die anyway (or we’re stuck otherwise) makes a lot of sense.
• Lifeblood Hydra: whoever kills it, will probably ensures the deck’s victory.
• Sensei's Divining Top: perfect scrying card as well as a nice draw-enabler in a pinch.
• Sylvan Library: draws two possible additional cards, that could mean the difference between victory and defeat.
• Worldly Tutor: great tutor that in some cases can capture some key creatures that enable victories.

Hydras

Just don’t chop off the heads; it won’t work.

• Gargos, Vicious Watcher: cheapens all other Hydra spells one likes to cast, effectively making them bigger when they ETB.
• Goldvein Hydra: exceptionally powerful abilities combined with many counters that can end up in oodles of treasure counters … ? Hell yes!
• Managorger Hydra: every spell allows him to grow; EVERY … SPELL! So unless someone gets rid of him, he’s going to grow big very, very fast.
• Mossborn Hydra: absolutely insane amount of token-potential.
• Neverwinter Hydra: in a deck with as many mana-resources as this one, the potential of this creature becoming rather gigantic is huge.
• Ochre Jelly: not exactly a Hydra, but obtains its strength in the same way and it’s very hard to kill if it managed to ETB with a large amount of counters.
• Primordial Hydra/Voracious Hydra: double their counters on their own, very convenient.
• Savageborn Hydra: strikes twice and can grow whenever one has some spare mana.
• Shivan Devastator: a flying, hasty dragon hydra!
• Stonecoil Serpent: not exactly a hydra either, but couldn’t pass it up as the multi-colored protection is awesome in an EDH-setting.

X-spells

Your life-total will be reduced by X.

• Banefire: easy to make it uncounterable with this deck; not to mention deadly.
• Burn from Within: an excellent X-spell that even helps to clear out those ridiculously powerful indestructible creatures.
• Clan Defiance: a multi-functional damage spell that allows one to use all of its casting-varieties at no additional cost.
• Comet Storm: there’s so much to love about this spell; it’s an instant, it costs next to nothing (1) to add an additional target to the spell and it deals X damage to all of them!
• Crackle with Power: the value of this beauty cannot be overstated; especially in a deck with copious amounts of mana AND damage-doublers. Has finished off a multitude of games.
• Electrodominance: multi-functional damage dealer with the added benefit of getting out a free spell.
• Fireball: a classic that just has to be in here; especially useful as a targeted wipe in case one happens to need one; but useful against single targets as well.
• Jaya's Immolating Inferno: can only cast this when there’s a legendary creature around; but that requirement is easy to fulfill and boy-oh-boy, does it deal some serious damage when it’s unleashed!
• Red Sun's Zenith: a reusable X-damage spell? Hell yes!

Doubling and other Utility

Bits and bobs that helps out this deck’s games while undoing yours:

• All Will Be One: with all the counters flying around, adding some damage to their appearance only made sense; it’s equally awesome to use as removal and against players.
• Branching Evolution: doubling all the deck’s generated +1/+1’s.
• Decimate/Hull Breach: every deck needs anti-artifact/enchantment spells.
• Doubling Season: mostly in here for the counter-doubling, but it’s useful in some cases to double tokens as well.
• Fiery Emancipation: the best damage multiplication.
• Kalonian Hydra: every turn it attacks, hydras on this side of the battlefield double in size.
• Lightning Greaves: superb protection for whatever creature it needs to be granted to.
• Ozolith, the Shattered Spire: even creatures without their own +1/+1 counters can get some with this artifact.
• Steelbane Hydra: a repeatable artifact/enchantment remover at the cost of a counter and some mana; let’s take it!
• The Ozolith: counters will never be lost once this hits the field!
• Unbound Flourishing: almost THE signature spell of the deck; empowers just about all the core cards it consists of.
• Vexing Shusher: awesome utility creature in Gruul; especially when facing blue.
• Xenagos, God of Revels: a divine upgrade for one of the hydras during each attack.

Notable exceptions

Currently not in here, for reasons described below.

• Hungering Hydra/Protean Hydra: their ability to survive (and effectively grow stronger) after receiving non-lethal damage is intriguing for sure. However, opponents usually don’t risk damaging them and it’s a bit tedious to do yourself; especially since in every other way these creatures are vanilla that can be blocked by 1/1 chumps.
• Hydra Broodmaster: was included in a previous iteration of this deck. It turned out to be a bit too slow.

Thank you for reading!

Appreciate the time you took to read this primer. Hopefully it was entertaining and useful to you. If so, feel free to leave a +1 and/or feedback of any kind in the comments below. Thanks again!

Date added	5 years
Last updated	1 day
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	23 - 0 Mythic Rares 47 - 0 Rares 10 - 0 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.68
Tokens	Copy Clone, Fanatic of Rhonas 4/4 B, Forest Dryad 1/1 G, Treasure