Sultai Zaxara
There are two versions of this deck, a tribal beatdown version and a combo kill version.
Zaxara Beatdown Tribal:
Use Zaxara, the Exemplary to make X/X hydra tokens.
Smash in for damage by giving your hydras trample (many of the non-token hydras come equipped with trample already) or use Herald of Secret Streams to make your hydras unblockable.
When you don't need them for their normal effects, Muddle the Mixture and Shred Memory can tutor out any 2 mana value cards, good choices for this are Simic Ascendancy, a win condition, Black Sun's Zenith/Cyclonic Rift when you need a board wipe, Primal Rage/Talons of Wildwood for trample, Profane Command/Curse of the Swine/Steelbane Hydra for removal, if you just want a monster, Hydroid Krasis/Primordial Hydra/Vastwood Hydra.
Your next tutor is Perplex and when you don't need the counterspell go get any 3 mana value card like Garruk's Uprising, Unbound Flourishing, Primal Empathy, Managorger Hydra/Lifeblood Hydra and of course Villainous Wealth. Perplex can also get some good removal, Beast Within/Krosan Grip/Putrefy, or mana ramp and mana rocks if you're desperate.
Clutch of the Undercity can be a removal spell, but it is really here as second copies of Herald of Secret Streams and Corpsejack Menace, this version is trying to kill with damage, so you really want either Herald of Secret Streams or Corpsejack Menace.
Other than the tutor targets, this strategy is pretty straight forward, make hydras give them evasion, kill your opponents. You can often snatch a sneaky win with Simic Ascendancy, Primordial Hydra is pretty good at doing that, also Corpsejack Menace and the hydras that Zaxara, the Exemplary makes will get Simic Ascendancy to twenty pretty fast.
Zaxara Brain Bleeder Combo:
For the Combo version of this deck we remove all of the cards listed in the Maybeboard and replace them with the cards in the Sideboard. We lose a few of our hydras some card draw and a couple other spells but gain two more counterspells Power Sink and Pact of Negation, some better card advantage Sensei's Divining Top and Lim-Dul's Vault, additional protection with Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots, and three pretty brutal finishers. We lose Clutch of the Undercity because we're not trying to necessarily win with our hydras. We instead gain three better tutors Vampiric Tutor/Demonic Tutor/Diabolic Intent, a possible alternative to Diabolic Intent could be Imperial Seal I'm not sure which is better.
While our black tutors can go and get any piece of our combo, in this version Perplex finds us either Freed from the Real or Pemmin's Aura. With one of those two auras enchanted onto Zaxara, the Exemplary we gain infinite mana. with infinite mana we can make hydras that insta-kill. However hydras are not the main way we're trying to win. Our main finishers, which Muddle the Mixture and Shred Memory can go and find for us are, first, the classic Exsanguinate, drain your opponents for all of their life. The second finisher is Torment of Hailfire obliterate your opponent's life totals, board states and hands. The third, and my personal favorite finisher for this deck is Mind Grind, you don't really need infinite mana to win with this card, usually Mind Grind for 10 or 20 will often be enough to convince your opponents to concede.
Budget Considerations:
A few notes regarding a more budget friendly version of this deck. Replacing Primordial Hydra with Voracious Hydra can save you around $10 at the time of this writing. I chose Primordial Hydra over Voracious Hydra because, while Voracious Hydra has trample, can double it's counters and be used as removal for an opponent's problem creature, Primordial Hydra is better since it doubles every upkeep and will gain trample quickly. Both cards are powerful in this deck, but I went with Primordial Hydra.
Another budget option is replacing Braingeyser with Mind Spring, that will save you a cool and fresh $27. I chose Braingeyser over Mind Spring because, while the two have the same Converted Mana Cost, Braingeyser can target an opponent, which if you're an experienced player could allow you to possibly deck one of your opponents during the late game or if you're playing the combo version of this deck. In general being able to choose who get's to draw is better than being forced to draw.
A third budget option is replacing Cyclonic Rift with something else, I don't know of any good board wipes with the same Converted Mana Cost, so you could put pretty much anything you want here. I chose to include Cyclonic Rift because I wanted a second board wipe that could be fetched with one of the Transmuting 2-drops and Cyclonic Rift is a powerful magic card. Replacing Cyclonic Rift will save you another $30.
The final budged option I suggest is don't run the combo version of this deck, The black tutors are expensive, Pact of Negation is expensive, Sensei's Divining Top is expensive. A lot of those cards are just really expensive, additionally depending on your play group, many Commander players dislike infinite combos and Mill type decks. Mind Grind sucks to have casted against you, especially when X = 10 or more. Most Commander decks run around 36 lands, so milling your library until you mill 1/3 of your lands feels really, really awful.
If you cut the whole Combo side of this deck as well as the other three cards I mentioned, you'll be saving yourself around $270.
Thanks for checking out my Zaxara, the Exemplary Commander deck.
