Rapid Hybridization

Instant

Destroy target creature. It can't be regenerated. That creature's controller creates a 3/3 green Frog Lizard creature token.

Discussion (50)

Optimator on Giant's Deck

1 week ago

The amount of utility cards that facilitates for a large-creature/stompy deck (like giant tribal) is completely unparalleled and unrivaled. There are things--both budget and expensive--like Garruk's Uprising, Soul's Majesty, Hunter's Insight, Snake Umbra, Triumph of Ferocity, Lead the Stampede, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Return of the Wildspeaker, Abundance, Rhythm of the Wild, Selvala's Stampede, Shamanic Revelation, Elemental Bond, Colossal Majesty, Guardian Project, Rancor, Primal Rage, Heroic Intervention, Wrap in Vigor, Golgari Charm, Lifecrafter's Bestiary, Canopy Cover, Aspect of Mongoose, Alpha Authority, Asceticism, Defense of the Heart, Lignify, Lurking Predators, Bow of Nylea, The Great Henge, Eerie Ultimatum, Reap, Creeping Renaissance, Seasons Past, Reap the Past, Genesis Ultimatum, Beastmaster Ascension, Overwhelming Stampede...

The list is huge, and it grows every year.

This is on top of the superior ramping ability of Green and it's above-average removal options. One big advantage of Green's land-based ramp is things like Planar Cleansing, Hour of Revelation, Play of the Game, Bane of Progress, Creeping Corrosion, and Merciless Eviction can't send you back to the stone age by destroying all your mana rocks.

Everything you will want to be doing with Giant Tribal, Green supports and supports well. I cannot stress this enough. Not to mention the good green giants that keep getting printed.

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Black doesn't provide too much in the way of utility specific to giant tribal or stompy decks other than recursion and good card draw like Greed, Phyrexian Arena, and Erebos, God of the Dead. Personally I like cards like Damnable Pact, Read the Bones, Ancient Craving and Ambition's Cost but if you're running Green and/or Blue you shouldn't need to lose life to draw cards. Painful Truths might still be useful due to it's great rate (three cards for three mana is good). Syphon Mind is a great rate and has the upside of making your opponents discard.

Obviously Black specializes in removal (but so does White!) so you could run things like Mortify, Despark, Utter End, Vindicate, Anguished Unmaking, Dreadbore, Terminate, Bedevil and Ruinous Ultimatum. In Garruk's Wake and Decree of Pain are probably good in your giant deck since you're ramping so hard. Since you're running White you shouldn't need Black's wraths, but those two stood out.

Things like Phyrexian Reclamation, Animate Dead, and Reanimate are great for creature decks. Palace Siege is all right on a budget. So is Twilight's Call. It's no Oversold Cemetery or Meren of Clan Nel Toth or Rise of the Dark Realms but those are pricey. Recovering from boardwipes will be important.

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Blue has some interesting removal options like Curse of the Swine, Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, and Reality Shift. You have some Cyclonic Rifts in your trade binder, right? That alone is a great reason to run Blue in your deck (it's literally one of the best cards in EDH straight-up). Do it!

Blue also has all the card-draw--from per-turn stuff like Kumena's Awakening and Mind Unbound; chunks of cards like Concentrate, Treasure Cruise, Fact or Fiction, Fathom Trawl, and Tidings; huge hand-refillers like Overflowing Insight, Mind Spring, Stroke of Genius, and Pull from Tomorrow; and some sneaky stuff like Windfall, Keep Watch, Drawn from Dreams, Verity Circle, and Insight. Green has some amazing card-draw already but it wouldn't be a terrible idea to supplement it with Blue cards. Rush of Knowledge would be REALLY good in a giant-tribal deck--especially with Morophon, the Boundless at the helm.

Counterspells are very much not Giant/Stompy but I have a few aggro decks that run a silver-bullet copy of Negate or Swan Song just as anti-boardwipe tech. Not necessary though. Boros Charm, Golgari Charm, and Wrap in Vigor work well in that capacity. There are lots of 3-cmc options too but the mana difference between 2 and 3 is huge.

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You could even run some interesting charms like Abzan Charm or Esper Charm. There are some surprisingly potent options. Some are stinkers of course.

Temur Ascendancy would be reason alone to run five colors and be utterly fantastic in this deck.

Garruk's Uprising alone is reason to run at least Green.

Merciless Eviction is one of the best removal spells in the game. Four or five colors would allow you to run that.

Urban Evolution would be good in a big-mana deck like this. Inspired Ultimatum, while not amazing, is playable.

You get the idea.

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As you can see, there is a myriad of reasons to run more colors. Honestly, I really can't recommend it enough if true Giant-Tribal is the goal--whether Naya giants or five-color giants.

One extremely important thing for large-creature decks is to consider how you're going to recover from board wipes. Superior card-draw from Green, Black, and Blue cards will help immensely. Card advantage like Phyrexian Reclamation, Palace Siege, Seasons Past, All Suns' Dawn, Reap the Past, Reap, Creeping Renaissance, Eerie Ultimatum, and abilities like Mayael the Anima's, Golos, Tireless Pilgrim's, and Kenrith, the Returned King's reanimate ability will help you recover. These are things that Red and White simply can't do well. Sure there's Resurrection and Reya Dawnbringer, but they aren't great.

Brion Stoutarm is a legitimately good general--he really is!--but not for giant tribal. He brings nothing to the table for giant tribal other than being a decently-statted Giant himself and pigeonholes you into the worst color pair in EDH for essentially no benefit. As I mentioned, Iroas, God of Victory and, to a lesser extent, Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas would make better commanders if you are dead-set on Boros colors (which I do not recommend if you want to play maximum giants). If you were building around Brion's ability and had some giants around as support that would be one thing, but it seems that's not the goal. As such, please consider switching commanders :) I think that if you want Brion Stoutarm as the commander, you should make a Brion deck.

I really do think you'll be happier in the long run with a different commander It doesn't have to be expensive. Most of what you would need I can trade to you, including Morophon, the Boundless, and most supplemental cards I don't have are in the 25-cent to $1 range (Realm-Cloaked Giant, Mayael the Anima, etc). I actually have a shitload of this utility stuff on-hand, and you have some great staples like Cyclonic Rift on-hand--and probably more! I want you to be satisfied with your deck! It doesn't have to be competitive to be fun, but it doesn't have to be expensive to work better and smoother and be more competitive.

SynergyBuild on Opposition Agent needs a preemptive …

2 weeks ago

jaymc1130 Tbh flash sorta sucks in an OP Agent meta xD

StopShot YES!, I have raved about a bunch of those, specifically Molten Vortex and Dismember.

Since Fatal Push needs revolt to hit Breacher and OP Agent, I think options like Ulcerate could actually be relevant.

Path to Exile as well as Swords to Plowshares off will quite possibly be run a lot more together, and actually is really good of you and an opponent have OP Agents out, so you can remove theirs and steal a land simultaneously. Exiling removes Unearth/Reanimate shenanigans so white has a massive leg up in the removal category.

Rapid Hybridization/Pongify feel more akin to the red or black removal spells, and bounce is so-so, but obviously countermagic and steal effects are possibly the best ways to deal with OP Agent. Gilded Drake has gotten a ton better with cards like Kinnan, Breacher, and OP Agent being powerful options for any deck, often especially ones outside of the colors.

I think green decks like Yisan are the worst off, while Ulvenwald Tracker is probably the best, it doesn't have many options past that, so I think they are hurt by this shift a lot.

jaymc1130 new comment, actually really enjoy Eliminate, feels akin to Abrupt Decay, despite obviously being worse, and ofc Assassin's Trophy is really good too, like Path to Exile

Edit: Trophy&path are may abilities, so it's not a free card.

jaymc1130 on Opposition Agent needs a preemptive …

2 weeks ago

StopShot

The single best piece of removal to find it's way into lists in the coming months is Path to Exile as this deals with the offending threat pretty permanently. It also combos very nicely with OP Agent itself to net a land to ensure a land drop when you miss a land draw to keep up the pace of tempo. Path is going to be the single most added card to deck lists in the next 6 months for these reasons. Pongify and Rapid Hybridization are the next two most effective removal pieces that will see additions to lists. Eliminate (and maybe Smother/Fatal Push) will be run in the 2 cmc removal slots more so than any card similar to Go for the Throat because it's restriction is usually slightly less problematic plus it can hit some of the very important complementary pieces (Narset, Ashiok, Maralen, Mindcensor, etc). Both Dark Betrayal and Human Frailty are fringe option considerations and while Snuff Out is no good but Deadly Rollick should be excellent for some deck archetypes (such as Yuriko).

The problem with most removal spells is that they tend to "destroy" the Agent and this doesn't really solve the problem. In my Maralen deck, for example, I'm already running Reanimate, Dance of the Dead, Necromancy, Animate Dead and have at times included for testing Unearth, Oversold Cemetery, plus a few other recursive elements. Just destroying the Agent is not a good way to deal with it, it's just going to come back (Noxious Revival, Regrowth, etc). You need to exile it. Swords and Path are the best bets, Winds of Abandon isn't terrible but it's also not instant speed. But the point here is that you want to exile the dude or find some sort of more permanent solution to the problem a la Gilded Drake/Oko than just spending some spot removal on a card that's going to make a return from the yard (Underworld Breach just to replay an Agent is a totally valid line to take in competitive settings, you'll just steal some one else's Breach to combo off). Can't stress this enough, you'll want to exile the Agent, not destroy it.

AbyssArray on Eligeth and Siani Flying and Scrying

3 weeks ago

Hmmm.. I'd probably consider Coastal Piracy, Rapid Hybridization, Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip

First two for extra redundancy, Dowsing Dagger is offensive ramp - the tokens don't affect you either

DemMeowsephs on Talrand Says No!

1 month ago

Hey there! Here are some cards you may want to consider:

• Rhystic Study
• Mystic Remora
• Mystical Tutor
• Preordain
• Flusterstorm
• Treasure Cruise
• Tribute Mage
• Gitaxian Probe
• Pongify/Rapid Hybridization
• Merchant Scroll
• Snapcaster Mage
• Fabricate
• Winged Words
• Coat of Arms (For the drakes?)

RNR_Gaming on Kruphix says "ni" in your general direction

1 month ago

multimedia making it hard to give suggestions again lol. So, I've brewed this guy up before as sort of a troll on one of the guys that plays at my lgs - Seedborn Muse and Wilderness Reclamation are absolute must have. Quest for Renewal fills a similar roll I'd actually increase the amount of dorks your playing. Priest of Titania, Elvish Mystic, Boreal Druid, and Fyndhorn Elves will all help you get out your commander stupid early. Utopia Sprawl and Wild Growth are basically elves in enchantment form. Sol Ring, Arcane Signet and Fellwar Stone put in work too. As far as your control package Rapid Hybridization, Pongify, Reality Shift and Beast Within give you some removal incase something slips through your counter magic. If you get a Seedborn Muse engine going Spell Burst or Capsize can give you a soft lock on the game.

ellie-is on Zaxara's Infinite Hydras

1 month ago

@Peoni: No worries, site notifications are often really broken here haha.

Totally right about Path of Ancestry, I added it in at first when I wasn't sure of all the creatures I was gonna have and I completely forgot to cut it later!!! Love the suggestions for replacements, thanks!

Everything else you said makes sense also, I'm going to be making all those changes asap :) I love Pongify and Rapid Hybridization, I used to have a whole bunch of the latter way back when it was standard-legal and cheap and I have absolutely no idea where they ended up but they're not with me anymore, haha. Tragic Slip is super fun and I have some spare ones too, but in a deck that can't reliably kill something else to trigger Morbid I'm not sure if it's the best idea? I'll add in the others and bring it in if there's space left :)

Peoni on Zaxara's Infinite Hydras

1 month ago

Never got a notification for this for some reason hmmmmm.. I might be a bit late but I'm definitely happy to help. :^)

Starting with your lands, they look pretty solid. This is SUPER nitpicky, but Path of Ancestry doesn't feel like a good fit here. This deck isn't exactly a tribal, and it only has 7 cards it can scry off of. It may give you any color you need, but the coming in tapped bit would make me steer clear. The decision is totally up to you though because it isn't necessarily a bad card, but just keep in mind I'm really finicky when it comes to mana coming in tapped lol. Alchemist's Refuge and Emergence Zone might be fun picks. Dropping 1000 1000/1000 Oozes or Wurms on your turn is certainly good, but even better would be your opponent's end step. >:^)

Your ramp might need a little more focusing between the auras, dorks, and rocks. I might recommend a few more rocks in Talisman of Curiosity and Talisman of Resilience, but I think auras are going to be your focus considering your untap synergies, so more cards like Wild Growth, Wolfwillow Haven, Overgrowth, and Verdant Haven would make for nice additions. That being said, I think the dorks should probably come out, along with maybe your more expensive auras Dawn's Reflection and Market Festival. Ramp cards that in my opinion definitely need to come out are Heartbeat of Spring and Dictate of Karametra purely because of their symmetry. Group hug effects like these are super dangerous, and I really don't think you need them in order to pull off your strat. That being said, I think you should cut Tidal Barracuda for similar reasons. Giving people flash is risky, even if they can't cast stuff on your turn.

Card draw suggestions I would make for now would be to consider targeted X draw spells like Blue Sun's Zenith and Stroke of Genius instead of Mind Spring, as they can also be used with infinite mana to deck your opponents. Brainstorm is almost always a good addition. I also think cutting Gadwick, the Wizened wouldn't be a bad move. He's difficult to cast outside of having infinite blue mana and he doesn't really have the best synergy with the rest of your deck.

For your removal I would suggest perhaps adding in some lower CMC options like Pongify or Rapid Hybridization as nice cheap spot removal. Dismember or Tragic Slip are also nice black options that get around indestructible. Any removal will do, really, and so it's again all up to you. I just like these a lot.

I'll leave it at that for now, and when you've made changes we can figure out what else needs to be added/cut. :^)