How To Turn a Hydra Into a Dark Ritual: A Primer (Commander / EDH MTG Deck)

How To Turn a Hydra Into a Dark Ritual: A Primer

Commander / EDH* Aristocrats BUG (Sultai) Combo Competitive Tribal

pootinanny

Creature (25)

Instant (9)

Planeswalker (2)

Land (30)

Artifact (11)

Commander (1)

Sorcery (12)

Enchantment (10)

Maybeboard

Enchantment (2)

I came up with this deck idea the day Zaxara, the Exemplary was spoiled and had the list set by day 3. Do not play this deck if you miss triggers often.

By all accounts this commander is a Hydra tribal commander or an X spells matters commander. The thing is this specific deck is not at all what you thought it would be. Before we get into the nitty gritty mechanics and lines of play, breaking down the commander is very important because the deck is not very intuitive at first glance.

WHAT IT DO?

Zaxara, the Exemplary is a 2/3 Legendary Nightmare Hydra. It has three abilities: Deathtouch; the ability to tap to produce two mana of any color, and the triggered ability to produce a 0/0 Green Hydra Creature Token that has X as many +1/+1 counters as whatever X spell you cast that triggers this ability. Neat.

First glance says it has the same CMC as Explosive Vegetation and it's in the command zone so.. woo! No need for 4 cmc ramp (well not many). Deathtouch is also nice in a defensive way. The last ability is pretty nifty in that it makes every X spell (Mind Spring for example) basically into the ETB of a hydra and every actual hydra come with a buddy that's just as big.

1. Whats The Catch?

The Catch is simple, it does not state on Zaxara, the Exemplary that the value of X needs to be more than 0. This, in laymen's terms, means we can play our Hydras with X=0 meaning their toughness is 0 effectively killing them the second they resolve as well as producing a Hydra Token that also immediately dies. What does this mean? It means Zaxara, the Exemplary is a weird middle ground between Parallel Lives and Teysa Karlov as long as we play our random X/X for X+a mana costing creatures with X=0.

This in turn means we can trigger on-death triggered abilities twice by casting an X/X for X+a mana costing creature with X=0. This means Zulaport Cutthroat drains 2 life for each one we play. This means Fecundity draws 2 cards for each one we play. This also means that token doublers like Parallel Lives and Doubling Season will increase the number of times these on death triggers trigger by 1 to 3 instances on each X/X for X+a mana costing creature we play. When both are on the battlefield with Zaxara, the Exemplary it will increase the on death triggers triggered to 5 instances on each X/X for X+a mana costing creature we play. This means that each X/X for X+a mana costing creature is actually effectively 2 (or more) on death triggers for only a mana. Any spell that produces a creature where a=0 from either from the graveyard or library, or produces an X/X token where X=0, is effectively the same as any of these creatures.

There is a total of 8 X/X for X+a mana costing creatures with a=0 in this list. Endless One
There is a total of 6 X/X for X+a mana costing creatures with a=1 in this list. Feral Hydra
There is a total of 5 X/X for X+a mana costing creatures with a=2 in this list. Primordial Hydra
There is a total of 2 creature tutors that directly put the creature onto the battlefield where X=the CMC of the creature. Since there is 8 X/X for X+a mana costing creatures with a=0, this means they can find them and are effectively additional copies of them given their respective CMC. Finale of Devastation
There is a total of 2 graveyard recursion spells for X+a mana. Since there is 8 X/X for X+a mana costing creatures with a=0, this means they can reanimate them and are effectively additional copies of them given their respective CMC. Stir the Grave
Chimeric Mass is effectively an X/X for X+a mana costing creature with a=1.
There is a total of 1 artifact tutor that directly puts the artifact onto the battlefield where X=the CMC of the artifact. Since several of the X/X for X+a where a=0 creatures are artifacts are in the list, this effectively can serve the same role as an a=3 creature. Whir of Invention
There is a total of 1 sorcery that produces an X/X creature token for X+a mana where a=1. Wurmcalling

The total number of X+a spells that effectively produce an X/X for X+a mana costing creature is 25. A literal quarter of this list. There are also 3 draw X for X+a mana spells and 1 return X cards from your graveyard to your have for X/X+a mana that can, if necessary produce an X/X green hydra creature token where X=0.

2. Lets Do Some Math

To really understand the deck we need to compare some statistics.These statistics are important as they help us determine what makes a good cantrip and what makes a good mana generation spell. The relevant statistics are:

Mana Generated-Mana Cost=Net Mana Value
Mana Generated/Mana Cost=Mana Generation Efficiency Value
Cards Drawn/Mana Cost=Card Advantage Efficiency Value
Cards Drawn/Cards Used=Net Card Advantage Value

A cantrip is generally considered a spell that costs 1 card and draws 1 card; therefore has a Net Card Advantage Value of 1, meaning it is card neutral; a redraw. Useful? Yes, it effectively thins your deck but does not increase the total cards in our hand. A cantrip is generally considered "good" if it is mana efficient, i.e. Opt scrys 1 (we'll call it .5 cards drawn) and draws 1 meaning it is better than card neutral and only costs 1 mana meaning its Card Advantage Efficiency Value is higher than 1. Another "good" cantrip is Gitaxian Probe as it traditionally is going to cost Phyrexian mana a la actually just 2 life therefore free of any mana cost. Because of it's net neutral mana value, the card advantage value it generates is essentially free.

A mana generation spell is a spell (usually an instant or sorcery) that has a positive Mana Generation Value by generating more mana than it costs. A commonly seen example of this is Pyretic Ritual, it produces 3 mana while costing 2. That means Pyretic Ritual has a Mana Generation Efficiency Value of 3/2 or 1.5. A "good" mana generation spell is one that efficiently produces mana like Dark Ritual which produces 3 mana while costing 1 giving it a Mana Generation Efficiency Value of 3/1 or 3, two times as efficient as Pyretic Ritual.

3. The Nitty Gritty - Card Draw

By controlling any permanent that has an on death triggered ability, we can play any of our X/X for X+a mana costing creatures and trigger them once. By having Zaxara, the Exemplary on the battle field and then playing any of our X/X for X+a mana costing creatures we trigger those abilities twice. These abilities can vary in the actual effect so this section will focus on Card Draw and the math involving it.

Our baseline standard Card Draw card will be the cantrip Opt and our exemplary standard will be Gitaxian Probe. As established Opt costs 1 mana and will draw 1.5 cards meaning it's Card Advantage Efficiency Value is 1.5. We will then compare our on death triggered ability triggering Hydras with just one permanent with the relevant effect of drawing one card whenever any creature you (or any player) controls dies and Zaxara, the Exemplary is under our control. Because there are 4 different cards that will cause us to draw a card whenever any creature dies (Fecundity, Dark Prophecy, Erebos, Bleak-Hearted, and Moldervine Reclamation) and Zaxara, the Exemplary is always available to us, it is essentially guaranteed that this set up will be created reasonably quickly.

Any X/X for X+a mana costing creatures where a=0 will cost 0 mana and draw 2 cards. For context this is 2 times more cards drawn than Gitaxian Probe and 1.34 times more cards drawn than Opt for free.
Any X/X for X+a mana costing creatures where a=1 will cost 1 mana and draw 2 cards. These have a Card Advantage Efficiency Value of 2 therefore being more efficient than Opt.
Any X/X for X+a mana costing creatures where a=2 will cost 2 mana and draw 2 cards. These have a Card Advantage Efficiency Value of 1 therefore being slightly less efficient than Opt.
Any other effect that produces on death triggers will therefore be worse than Opt.

That means that, as long as a single Fecundity style effect is on the board there are 12 cards that cantrip more efficiently than Opt and 8 of those cantrip more efficiently than Gitaxian Probe. Having 2 permanents that produce this effect or a token doubler will make all 25 of these effects more efficient than Opt and will outweigh Gitaxian Probe's efficiency with sheer Card Advantage Value.

Simply put this sheer amount of cantripping potential heavily streamlines the deck allowing for the ability to draw into either other X/X for X+a mana costing creatures or creature producing spells or other on death triggered ability effects.

Tl;Dr when it gets going, it is borderline braindead, only requiring a basic understanding of sequencing to pilot correctly because a large portion of the deck is comprised of some of effectively the most efficient card filtering effects ever printed.

4. How To Turn a Hydra Into a Dark Ritual

Thornbite Staff

The interaction between Thornbite Staff and Zaxara, the Exemplary is absolutely fantastic. For starters, Zaxara, the Exemplary has Deathtouch. This means that, if equipped, Zaxara, the Exemplary can be activated for and kill any creature that is not Hexproof, Shrouded, or Indestructible and then untap. This is definitely cool and can be used as an efficient way to eliminate problematic creatures.

Because of the second ability Thornbite Staff gives, we can turn every X/X for X+a mana costing creature or creature producing spell into a Net Mana Positive spell. When the second given Thornbite Staff ability is triggered and goes onto the stack, you can tap Zaxara, the Exemplary to produce 2 mana of any one color in response to each time it is triggered. This is an on death triggered ability, exactly what this list is looking to abuse and for some reason WOTC decided to make Zaxara, the Exemplary tap for more than 1 mana.

The baseline standard for mana generating spells is Pyretic Ritual and the exemplary standard is Dark Ritual. With Zaxara, the Exemplary on the battlefield and Thornbite Staff equipped to it:

Any X/X for X+a mana costing creature where a=0 will produce 4 mana. Its literally 4 free mana for effectively discarding a card. In other terms, it is 4 Elvish Spirit Guides in one card.
Any X/X for X+a mana costing creature or creature producing spell where a=1 produces 4 mana for the cost of 1 mana. That means for 1 mana you generate 4 therefore being more efficient that Dark Ritual.
Any X/X for X+a mana costing creature or creature producing spell where a=2 produces 4 mana for the cost of 2 mana. This has a Mana Generation Efficiency Value of 2 therefore being more efficient than Pyretic Ritual.
Any X/X for X+a mana creature producing spell where a=3 produces 4 mana for the cost of 3. This has a Mana Generation Efficiency Value of 1.34 therefore being slightly less efficient than Pyretic Ritual.

This means, at base given the variables of Zaxara, the Exemplary being equipped with Thornbite Staff, there are 25 spells that produce mana at nearly the same efficiency or greater than Pyretic Ritual and 8 of them are more efficient than Dark Ritual. With either Parallel Lives or Doubling Season on the battlefield (or God-Forbid both), all 25 of these spells produce more mana than Dark Ritual at a more efficient rate than Dark Ritual.

Pitiless Plunderer

The second possible mana generator line to turn our X/X for X+a mana costing creatures into Net Mana Positive effects is Pitiless Plunderer. Pitiless Plunderer produces a treasure token whenever another creature you control dies. Those treasure tokens can be used to generate mana. Simple! The first part to establish the rate at which we produce mana from having Pitiless Plunderer on the field is 1:1 ratio of the number of total creatures that die (C) to the total number of treasure tokens produced (T). Zaxara, the Exemplary is simple in this regard as it adds the variable H for total Hydra tokens produced. C=1+H where 1 is the value for the actual creature card played. Therefore 1+H=T, therefore each X/X for X+a mana costing creature we play is going to produce 2 treasure tokens and therefore 2 mana. Generally speaking this is half the Net Total Mana Generated at which Thornbite Staff will produce mana for the same rate.

The difference is token doublers like Parallel Lives double all tokens produced including treasure tokens. This change in the ratio of mana generation will make Thornbite Staff and Pitiless Plunderer's mana generation equal after having one token doubler in play.

With Zaxara, the Exemplary and Pitiless Plunderer in play, each X/X for X+a mana costing creature produces 1 hydra token and therefore 2 treasure tokens,
With Zaxara, the Exemplary, Pitiless Plunderer, and one token doubler in play, each X/X for X+a mana costing creature produces 2 hydra tokens and therefore 6 treasure tokens.
With Zaxara, the Exemplary, Pitiless Plunderer, and two token doublers in play, each X/X for X+a mana costing creature produces 4 hydra tokens and therefore 10 treasure tokens.

5. Let's Bring It All Together

That is the bare essential mathematics to justify the power of this strategy. The incredibly part of all of this is: the effects and the mechanics explained in parts 3. and 4. are not exclusive. They are going to be triggered and produced from the same trigger, our Hydras being played for X=0. This means, in a vacuum, we are able to play mana generators that are more efficient than Dark Ritual and cantrips that are more efficient than Gitaxian Probe, however they are the same spell. This means that the Cards Used Value is literally a quarter of the amount necessary to play Gitaxian Probe AND Dark Ritual compared to the value used in one single Hydra

To bring it all together now, the lines of play are "simple", achieve a board state where either the mana generator line is achieved or the card draw engine is achieved and then sequence our Hydras to generate mana and/or card advantage to find our game winning lines. This is where redundancy comes into play. We need to either be able to find our mana generator cards (Thornbite Staff or Pitiless Plunderer) with tutors or to draw into them by going 1:2 (or more) with our on death card draw triggered abilities.

There are 4 relevant tutors in this decklist: Finale of Devastation, Chord of Calling, Whir of Invention, and Tribute Mage. There is a toolbox assembled for tutor-able access allowing each of these to fulfill multiple roles. These tutors are all about flexibility and each one will be outlined:

Tribute Mage

The series of "T" mages that tutor artifacts of specific CMC are always useful for finding combo pieces. Tribute Mage finds specifically CMC 2 artifacts on ETB. This gives us a tutor suite of relevant combo pieces, hate pieces, protection pieces, or mana rocks. The tutorable targets are:

The reason we are playing Tribute Mage over other tutors like Demonic Tutor or Vampiric Tutor which, in a technical vacuum are better, is because of the relevancy of the effect being on a creature. It expands the tool box available from creature tutors like:

Finale of Devastation/Chord of Calling

These two are paired together as they are essentially the same card, only having the difference of 1 mana on start up, Convoke on Chord of Calling which we rarely can appropriately utilize considering our immense mana engine and proclivity to only have our commander on the field, and Finale of Devastation also fetching from the graveyard which can be occasionally useful in a niche. These are the most flexible tutors in the deck as they are X spells than can be cast for X=0 that can produce an X/X for X+a mana costing creature where a=0. ESSENTIALLY, at a bare minimum, Finale of Devastaton is an X/X for X+a where a=2 creature producing spell and Chord of Calling is X/X for X+a where a=3 creature producing spell. The floor is mediocre X/X costing creatures.

The ceiling is that both of these cards can find relevant creatures including:

Essentially, these two tutors are combo pieces, ramp, card draw, and win-cons whenever we need one them to be one OR just another X/X for X+a mana costing creatures. Truly flexible.

Whir of Invention

Whir of Invention can be compared to Tribute Mage in a few ways, mainly in how it searches for artifacts, however the difference is how it does the searching. They both have the same CMC (3) so the cost to search is the same, however the fact Whir of Invention is an instant and it puts the artifact directly into play. This means that it is technically more efficient and can be sneakier than Tribute Mage as well as the line of Chord of Calling into Tribute Mage. The artifacts it can tutor for are the same as Tribute Mage as well as X/X for X+a mana artifact creatures where a=0 like:

Basically, it can tutor for the same suite as Tribute Mage as well as finding a Hydra. Flexible.

6. But Like... Why?

What "actually" closes the game out after we get our engine online? Well there are a three primary goals in mind in this list but you could theoretically put any game ending combo or synergy into the list given how powerful the actually engine is. The big thing is a few of them directly synergize with what we are trying to do or our commander in general and therefore are standouts in this category. They are:

Pemmin's Aura/Freed from the Real

These two are basically identical, 3 CMC and make infinite mana. They each have their upsides and their downsides (however minuscule they may be). The line goes like this:

Stick either of the enchantments onto our commander.
Tap your commander for .
Untap our commander for only .
Proceed to make infinite mana.
Proceed to use that infinite mana to make infinite mana of every other color.

What's the difference between the two? Pemmin's Aura can give shroud to the enchanted creature which is a plus but it also costs whereas Freed from the Real only costs therefore being easier to cast. This lets you play the other lines easier including running the draw engine a little more easily.

Syr Konrad, the Grim

So this guy does like... way too many things for an uncommon but what ever. For starters he will ping our opponents for damage every on death triggering trigger (and we already covered how easy those are to accrue) but he also pings our opponents when they leave the graveyard which will be covered in the GAS! GAS! GAS! section (lookin' at you Gravepurge). He also happens to be an infinite mana sink (and we already covered how easy that is to accrue) that mills all players which almost certainly will kill everyone from damage alone and if it doesn't they die from the draw step on their turn.

LET'S SAY... HYPOTHETICALLY THERE IS A Platinum Emperion ON A PLAYER'S FIELD AND THERE IS A Kozilek, Butcher of Truth IN THAT PLAYER'S LIBRARY. Luckily for us, Dread Return can be used from our graveyard to reanimate...

Thassa's Oracle

Potentially 25 better-than-Gitaxian Probe draw spells have a good potential to draw through the entire deck, Infinite mana spent into Syr Konrad, the Grim which allows Dread Return to reanimate from the graveyard, and infinite mana spent into a Blue Sun's Zenith all sound like a good Thassa's Oracle play, don't they?

Really... what blue EDH deck doesn't have an oracle line in it at this point? The fish is power creep at it's finest. The real synergy is that there is not one but two 1 card+commander infinte mana combos and 3 draw X spells and an infinite mana mill sink that depletes the library allowing Thassa's Oracle to do it's thing. If it wasn't so good at winning the game while also having the incidental upside of card manipulation, it wouldn't be an auto include. But it has those things so it's an auto include.

All in all these are what we are generally looking for to win the game. There are other theoretical lines that win the game like Blue Sun's Zenithing each opponent for their entire library + 1 since infinite mana is so easily achieved but outlining ALL theoretical lines would be a bit overkill.

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91% Casual

Competitive

Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Exclude colors	WR
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Mythic Rares 45 - 0 Rares 23 - 0 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.26
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Hydra 0/0 G, Thopter 1/1 C, Treasure, Wurm / G
Folders	EDH Concept Decks
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