does persist work on hydras

Asked by golgariizzet 7 years ago

i have been working on a deck and was thinking about putting in Cauldron of Souls but the majority of the cards are hydra and 0/0 until cast so i would think persist would not work and send them to the grave yard is this right.

nobu_the_bard says... Accepted answer #1

It depends on the hydra. Persist is not necessarily a bad idea for a hydra tribal deck, but it depends on what the hydras in the deck look like.

Most hydras look like a variation on Vastwood Hydra. Because he re-enters the battlefield without his cost being paid, X will be 0, so he will enter the battlefield as a 0/0 with a -1/-1 counter if he is persisted. Persist is a bad match for these sorts.

A smaller number of hydras don't have quite the tribe's most well-known mechanic, such as Polukranos, World Eater. These generally have some ability to gain +1/+1 counters, which is a good way to repeatedly reuse persist (because it will cancel out the -1/-1 counter). Persist is a good match for these.

January 21, 2017 noon