Gargos, Vicious Watcher

Legendary Creature — Hydra

Vigilance

Hydra spells you cast cost {4} less to cast.

Whenever a creature you control becomes the target of a spell, Gargos, Vicious Watcher fights up to one target creature you don't control. (Each deals damage equal to its power to the other.)

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (47)

wallisface on Rampaging Hydras & Elves Deck

1 year ago

This us the kindof list i’d end up building (again, Green-Blue, but it’d be super-easy to make this mono-green)

• 4x Hydroid Krasis
• 4x The Goose Mother
• 4x Ice-Fang Coatl
• 4x Mistcutter Hydra
• 4x Voracious Hydra
• 2x Kalonian Hydra
• 2x Gargos, Vicious Watcher
• 4x Unbound Flourishing
• 4x Utopia Sprawl
• 4x Noble Hierarch
• 4x Birds of Paradise
• 4x Prismatic Vista
• 2x Snow-Covered Island
• 14x Snow-Covered Forest

MrHighscore on Dehydrated Hydras

1 year ago

It's been a couple of years, and the Hydra horde have matured!

Thanks for all your great suggestions while I've been away. I can see that the deck could need an overhaul with all the wonderful new cards

The following are now under consideration

• Vivien Reid: all her abilities seems useful
• Unbound Flourishing: Wait what? More doubling! Sign me up, double time.
• Traverse the Outlands: Prune deck for all lands AND put them into play? Awesomesauce!
• The Great Henge: Seems alrigt. Not sure it's worth a slot, but ramp and card draw.
• Shadowspear: Trample and some other nice stuff
• Selvala, Heart of the Wilds: Very good alternate commander. Will clearly be better than Polukranos, World Eater, but I'm not sure I can have an Elf Scout piloting a Hydra deck? Or can I? If so, I for sure need
• Umbral Mantle to go full retard on the board
• Rishkar's Expertise may be quite a good draw spell, but I hate to discard
• Nissa, Who Shakes the World: Lots of more mana. Would never +1 her, but if she comes out under Doubling Season, the -8 emblem sounds pretty sexy.
• Monstrous Onslaught: There is a hydra on the card. Nuff said
• Lifecrafter's Bestiary: Could be alright to draw some cards. But makes X one less. not sure
• Karametra's Acolyte: bonkers ramp
• Invigorating Surge: double +2 counters on a hydra. Could be fine?
• Infiltration Lens: Fixes draw for cheap! In this deck it surely beats Skullclamp
• Garruk's Uprising: Pretty good draw engine for the hydrating hydras
• Emerald Medallion: Okay is. Not sure it's good enough compared to the more expensive options
• Branching Evolution: Wait what? Yet another doubler? How are you doing?

New Hydras to make room for:

• Gargos, Vicious Watcher
• Hungering Hydra
• Polukranos Reborn  ^Flip
• Steelbane Hydra
• Voracious Hydra
• Whiptongue Hydra

seshiro_of_the_orochi on Krond, the Shining Archon

1 year ago

I was today years old when I realized the duality between Krond and Vela the Night-Clad.

A card I like a lot for enchantress decks is Gargos, Vicious Watcher. He's a good target for auras, but he turns every aura into spot removal.

YorkshireSamurai on “X” Marks the Spot

1 year ago

Nice build! I have something similar myself except the hydrae are very much a sub-theme.

Nice inclusion of Invasion of Ikoria  ^Flip. I considered it, but decided against in the end.

I tried to put a few target spells in to work with Gargos, Vicious Watcher and not just use it for that 4 mana discount although your deck has a lot more hydra creatures.

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/zaxara-the-mighty-hydra-horror-1/

CamraMaan on Timing question with Gargos, Vicious …

1 year ago

Sorry, it's been a flood of questions lately.

Gargos, Vicious Watcher is in play, and I want to have it fight Grothama, All-Devouring by casting Mending Touch targeting Gargos. Will the fight occur before Mending Touch resolves? I'm not sure about the stack order with this, as I don't know if Gargos triggers on the cast of the spell, or the resolution, and then where the trigger will go on the stack. Will Gargos receive the regeneration effect before it fights, and prevent its death, or will it die first...?

Thanks in advance!

CamraMaan on Interaction between Gargos, Vicious Watcher …

1 year ago

I'm assuming Gargos, Vicious Watcher will trigger for each of my creatures targeted by Silkguard...? And it's not a "may", so I would have to do it, correct? Obviously, it's just for +1/+1 counters, so I wouldn't fight more than Gargos could handle. Thanks in advance!

DrukenReaps on progenitus or morophon

1 year ago

Hydra tribal I'd highly recommend just mono-green headed by Gargos, Vicious Watcher, or maybe red-green. The majority of hydras are just green. That said I'm not going to stop you.

Morophon seems the better choice of the two for a 5 color tribal deck. It supports your 99 and lets you actually cast Progenitus. Morophon will reduce the cost of most your hydras by 1, some of them by a bit more. For each reduction they can often get another +1/+1 counter, plus it offers +1/+1 to them as a base.

Progenitus, however, is going to draw eyes and not every deck has a good tool to kill it... That could bring your hydra deck attention early that you don't necessarily have a good response to.

Michigone on Isshin for a Fight

1 year ago

Been a second since I changed anything, deck was overdue for a little update. A newer player in my playgroup plays a Kardur, Doomscourge deck, and I read an article recently that talked about how to combat power creep in a playgroup in ways that are fun and interesting for everyone. And the article talked about building decks with your meta in mind, or at least coming up with ways to combat specific decks that you are likely to see, and in the interest of full disclosure, I don't often do that. I find myself building decks that excite me from a mechanical perspective, and then fine tuning the deck relative to my playgroup through playtesting, and in this way letting the meta affect my card choices for slots in my 99. I don't think it's a bad way to deck build, but I think I ask others for their opinions a lot (sorry Crow-Umbra), and that it's a result of me not looking at my meta in particular. I think that thinking about my card slots in terms of what I'll sit down and face on any given play night would actually have me asking less, or maybe just different questions of what my deck should be doing to accomplish its game plan.

Okay, so that's a long ramble, and all of this is to say that against the players in my play group that field decks that put up big bodies that I can't swing into (Gargos, Vicious Watcher, Ghired, Conclave Exile) or their decks go wide enough that they can chump block my creatures to death (Edgar Markov, Ghired, Conclave Exile, Alela, Artful Provocateur, Marrow-Gnawer, Isperia, Supreme Judge, Lathril, Blade of the Elves), or they play Goad (Just the Kardur, Doomscourge Deck currently), I need more protection for my attackers. Now Crow-Umbra mentioned Reconnaissance way back, and I kind of slept on it because I thought (incorrectly) that it would hamper my ability to do damage, but still offer me the benefit of vigilance. But I realized that after the errata by Magic in creating multiple combat steps, that I can still use Reconnaissance to untap my attacking creatures after they've dealt damage, during the combat end step, thus allowing me to "have my cake and eat it too." So I was wondering what to cut, and I landed on cutting Curse of Opulence. It is irritating to the player that it gets put on, and it's hard to assess as early as turn one who the biggest threat will be, and it embitters whichever player I put it on against me, so even though I get ramp off of it, and other players do too, it doesn't really do me too many favors. So Curse is out, Reconnaissance is in.