Let's Make Hermit Druid Great Again!

Commander / EDH*

Lilbrudder

Instant (30)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Lim-Dul's Vault
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Memory's Journey
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Pull from Eternity
• 1x Shallow Grave
• 1x Silence
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Tainted Pact
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Careful Study
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Dread Return
• 1x Eldritch Evolution
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Grim Tutor
• 1x Imperial Seal
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Reanimate

Land (30)

• 1x Bayou
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Blooming Marsh
• 1x Botanical Sanctum
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Flooded Grove
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Savannah
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Scrubland
• 1x Seat of the Synod
• 1x Tropical Island
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Vault of Whispers
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Yavimaya Coast

Artifact (6)

• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Lion's Eye Diamond
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sol Ring

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Concordant Crossroads
• 1x Sylvan Library

Commanders (2)

Creature (19)

• 1x Angel of Glory's Rise
• 1x Apprentice Necromancer
• 1x Auriok Salvagers
• 1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fatestitcher
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Hapless Researcher
• 1x Hermit Druid
• 1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip
• 1x Laboratory Maniac
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Narcomoeba
• 1x Noble Hierarch
• 1x Trinket Mage

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MERICA!

Alright that is enough of the cheesy political references...Just to clarify, this deck is only designed for competitive EDH. All feedback is welcome.

Why Hermit Druid?

That is a good question. Truth be told, it has been a long time since Hermit Druid was a great combo. Everyone knows what he is about and there are many good reasons to avoid him:

1) Having to wait a full turn cycle to activate the druid makes the combo fragile. Most HD decks telegraph him badly and fold to interaction.

2) Hermit druid forces your land base into 0% basics, which allows cards like Blood Moon and Back to Basics to shut the deck down hard.

3) The combo requires alot of card slots to function and key pieces can often find themselves in your hand at an inopportune moment, which can neutralize the combo.

4) Outside 5 color HD lists, the finishers for HD combo are suspect:

A. Deep Analysis + Laboratory Maniac is horribly risky and mana inefficient.

B. Necrotic Ooze using Knacksaw Clique is less risky and kind of instant speed, but it is more card intensive and mana inefficient.

C. Necrotic Ooze using Thornwind Faeries is the best BUG finisher almost noone seems to know about. It is more mana efficient than labman and just as safe as clique. Its primary downside is that it is very card slot intensive. It must be noted that enpc does a nice job of incorporating that extra baggage into a useful backup combo. This finisher is ideal for The Mimeoplasm

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Abuse the Ooze

Commander / EDH* enpc

SCORE: 3 | 6 COMMENTS | 323 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

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While a great innovation, this finisher is too card slot intensive for Sidisi, Brood Tyrant since she needs those slots for other important combos and often uses Hermit Druid as removal bait to slam down Necrotic Ooze and Food Chain combos. This is why my baby still uses labman:

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All Nightmare Long (SBT Primer)

Commander / EDH* Lilbrudder

SCORE: 62 | 121 COMMENTS | 17258 VIEWS | IN 54 FOLDERS

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So now for my rebuttle...

Despite his many warts and lack of social graces, Hermit Druid is one of a select few "one card" combos capable of ending the game early and consistently. Also it allows me unleash my favorite archetype, human reanimator combo.

Note: Soon I will write about my Thrasios human reanimator adventures with boonweaver combo in place of HD and add it to the primer I am constructing.

I have spent a considerable amount of time addressing the four weaknesses I outlined:

1) Concordant Crossroads provides me with a cheap way to activate hermit druid (and my other utility creatures) the turn I play him. I also can sneak him into play on my opponents end step with Chord of Calling to give him pseudohaste. I can also Entomb then Shallow Grave or Apprentice Necromancer him into play to achieve the same goals. If he gets exiled he can be brought back for reanimation with Pull from Eternity .

2) While there is no perfect solution to the nonbasic hate problem, this deck has a solid removal and counterspell suite and also runs a reasonably high number of mana dorks and mana rocks, which can provide enough color fixing to remove problematic permanents. The best way to beat such effects is to win before my opponents can resolve something so backbreaking.

3) The best solution to this problem most games involves Mulligan-ing away problematic opening hands. However, that does not entirely solve the issue and forces you to dump otherwise excellent hands. Therefore I have taken the following measures:

A) Added many hand filtering options that are great standalone cards (ex. Brainstorm, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ).

B) Added a reanimator subtheme to the deck to facilitate easily assembled two card win conditions to make looting and reanimation effects much better cards on average.

C) Added multiple layers and nuances to the combo. This allows me to complete the combo in less than ideal circumstances aka. when things go to shit (ex. Lingering Souls; Memory's Journey ; Pull from Eternity .

4) See Gameplan

Gameplan

PLAN A: Hermit Druid combo featuring Angel of Glory's Rise

1) Activate Hermit Druid to mill library

2) Mill Narcomoeba and unearth Fatestitcher for "free" to get 3 creatures in play if needed.

3) Sacrifice three creatures to flashback Dread Return targeting Angel of Glory's Rise, which reanimates all the humans in my deck

4) Win the game by sacrificing Hapless Researcher with Laboratory Maniac in play. Since Grand Abolisher will already be in play, opponents will not be able to interact with this combo once Angel of Glory's Rise trigger resolves. To protect this crucial step the deck runs a decent counterspell suite as well a Silence to proactively lock opponents out of the combo turn. Moreover the combo is very mana efficient. I can complete the the entire combo on turn 3 with no mana acceleration or creatures in play needed beyond HD and still have enough resources to defend my Dread Return or Angel of Glory Rise trigger with cards like Muddle the Mixture or Mana Drain.

If Hermit Druid gets exiled he can be brought back to the graveyard with Pull from Eternity and put into play with haste using Shallow Grave .

PLAN B: Thrasios, Triton Hero combo

1) Put Auriok Salvagers + Lion's Eye Diamond into play together. This can be assembled the old fashioned way or with Buried Alive + Reanimate by filling the graveyard with Angel of Glory's Rise, Trinket Mage, and Auriok Salvagers and reanimating angel to put salvagers into play and LED in my hand. If I have one of the pieces already I can add Grand Abolisher to the Buried Alive pile to protect the combo.

2) Cast and recur LED with salvagers to produce infinite colored mana. (This combo is being tested because the monolith combos and dramatic scepter have been very underwhelming. Moreover, Tymna and Thrasios have the ability to replenish my hand if things go poorly.

3) Cast Thrasios, Triton Hero and use his ability to put all lands in play and the rest of my library into my hand. Then put Laboratory Maniac into play and use one of many possible draw spells to win the game.

PLAN C: Laboratory Maniac + Tainted Pact

Tainted Pact is a nice dig spell on its own and this combo can win the game through graveyard hate. Once Laboratory Maniac is in play just wait until your upkeep and cast Tainted Pact, exile your whole library, go to draw step, and win. If you have draw spell in hand or Hapless Researcher in play you can complete the combo in a single turn.

The rest of the deck helps ensure these plans are successful. All credit goes to chaosumbreon87 for the Angel of Glory's Rise Hermit Druid combo.

TL;DR: Thrasios+another partner is almost strictly better than a handful of current tier 1 generals as the figurehead (with upside) of an aggressive combo deck. His mana sink ability+color identity available to him gives hermit druid combo the potential to be great again.

Top Ranked	Achieved #6 position overall 7 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	5 years
Key combos	Auriok Salvagers + Lion's Eye Diamond Laboratory Maniac + Tainted Pact Buried Alive + Reanimate Deep Analysis + Laboratory Maniac
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	14 - 0 Mythic Rares 54 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 17 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.80
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Emblem Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Spirit 1/1 C
Folders	Decks to beat, Interesting Brews, EDH (One Day, 4-COL), Cool Stuff, EDH, Nice, ehd, Commander/EDH, Competitive, cEDH
Based on	Thrasios 4 color HD prototype Lilbrudder EDH