The objective: Make your friends say "oh ****!!" every time you cast a hydra. The main win condition is using the enchantment Mayael's Aria, this is a heavy enchantment deck. So naturally you would only use it in a casual play. This enchantment is ridiculous with creatures that have +1/+1 counters. Naya likes things in fives, but with hydras you exceed that number quickly.
The deck focuses around growth of +1/+1 counters, every creature in this deck can either grow with +1/+1 counters or help other creatures grow. Either way, your creatures should get stronger as time goes on.
Mana
: I finally found the perfect pair of mana dorks, the two that I use are Sylvan Caryatid paired with the Gyre Sage. I don't know why I ignored this combo for so long, but it makes sense and works out great. I think I did not use the Gyre Sage because the Birds of Paradise could not evolve anyone. So I would have had to wait for a hydra to evolve my mana dork. I also use Mirari's Wake for the over the edge mana ramp. Plus, this guy helps make your
Protean Hydra
immune to damage. To help with mana fixing I use also use Abundant Growth.
Utility
: To deal with flying, I use Frog Tongue amd
Spidersilk Armor
. Frog Tongue helps with flyers and gives you card draw.
Spidersilk Armor
combos well with all your hydras, especially
Protean Hydra
. It makes that guy evolve into a
Phytohydra
, neat little trick. Most players will forget that
Spidersilk Armor
not only gives your creatures reach, but also buffs their toughness.
This is a +1/+1 counter deck, so naturally I put in a Doubling Season (before they reprinted it!). If you can get your hands on one, then by all means do so. I use Fling because so many people will want to kill any of your hydras, so this will make them think twice.
I also need some form of tutoring through my deck, so I added in
Signal the Clans
. There is three types of hydras, so one goes to those three. Then there is 4 types of creatures who help accelerate the +1/+1 counters. So the other one can fetch one of those.
The last bit I am using is Bioshift, this idea just recently came to me from one of the comments. Its a great trick, your whole strategy is based around controlling the counters. With Bioshift we have a way of gaining even more control. We could use this card both offensively or defensively.
Creature
: I split my creatures base in half, one half is hydras and the other half is utility. The only guy I have not mentioned from the utility side is Vigor, he is a +1/+1 counter god. With him on the board, your hydras become unbearable. He is the natural protector of all creatures.
Now come the hydras: I use three types of hydras, there is the Primordial Hydra,
Protean Hydra
, and the Savageborn Hydra.
The Primordial Hydra is probably the best one because it can win you the game the fastest. You can cast this guy early on and watch him grow as you grow your mana base. Or you can just cast him at the end with some ridicules amount of mana and win the game. Either way, he works...but he also gains you significant amount of aggro.
The Savageborn Hydra is a unique hydra in that it can still grow even after you cast it actively. That is the reason why I put it in the deck, put him out on turn 3 and then just slowly build him up to 20 +1/+1 counter. Not to mention the fact that he also hits hard, I don't see many double strikers being that big. So even if this hydra is small it can still do massive amounts of damage. I like to play this creature early, then slowly build him up. Remember you have the Mayael's Aria to add counters onto the creature, and if you have more than one than you get more +1/+1 counters. Casting him early on helps players not kill it so quickly.
The last guy is the
Protean Hydra
, this guy is a Vigor wannabe . With just one little enchantment, he can be hard to kill. Either get a
Spidersilk Armor
or a Mirari's Wake onto the field and it can sustain any damage you throw at it. The creature prevents all damage by taking off +1/+1 counters off and at the end step doubling the amount and putting them back on. It can not always double the amount of damage it takes, it can only double the amount of +1/+1 counters on it in terms of damage. Players will still hate this creature regardless.
The only other win condition built into the deck by default is to just let your hydras run. Attack all out, your bound to at least kill one person.
If you used ideas from this deck, please let me know. I like to see other people's input.
