Zaxara - Sultai X / Hydra

Commander / EDH BUG (Sultai) Competitive Counters Infinite Combo Tokens

karkin_98

Land (33)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Barkchannel Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Bayou
• 1x Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Darkwater Catacombs
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Grove
• 4x Forest
• 1x Island
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Rejuvenating Springs
• 1x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Tropical Island
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Undergrowth Stadium
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Yavimaya Coast
• 1x Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth
• 1x Zagoth Triome

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Doubling Season
• 1x Freed from the Real
• 1x Garruk's Uprising
• 1x Pemmin's Aura
• 1x Song of the Dryads
• 1x Unbound Flourishing
• 1x Up the Beanstalk

Creature (23)

• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Bloom Tender
• 1x Delighted Halfling
• 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Herald of Secret Streams
• 1x Hydroid Krasis
• 1x Ilysian Caryatid
• 1x Ingenious Prodigy
• 1x Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
• 1x Kalonian Hydra
• 1x Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy
• 1x Kiora's Follower
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Nyxbloom Ancient
• 1x Primordial Hydra
• 1x Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
• 1x Steelbane Hydra
• 1x The Goose Mother
• 1x Voracious Hydra
• 1x Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider
• 1x Walking Ballista

Instant (10)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Delay
• 1x Drown in Dreams
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Intuition
• 1x Lim-Dul's Vault
• 1x Outrageous Robbery
• 1x Thassa's Intervention
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner
• 1x Oko, Thief of Crowns

Commander (1)

Sorcery (18)

• 1x Animist's Awakening
• 1x Awaken the Woods
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Damnable Pact
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Revelation
• 1x Exsanguinate
• 1x Finale of Devastation
• 1x Green Sun's Twilight
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Mind Grind
• 1x Natural Order
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Profane Command
• 1x Profane Tutor
• 1x Torment of Hailfire
• 1x Villainous Wealth

Artifact (6)

• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Golgari Signet
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Sol Ring

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Sideboard

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Extract Brain
• 1x Open the Way
• 1x Regrowth

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Simic Ascendancy

Instant (2)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Pact of Negation

Artifact (1)

• 1x Simic Signet

Creature (1)

• 1x Boreal Druid

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Maybeboard

Land (8)

• 1x Botanical Sanctum
• 1x Fabled Passage
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 1x Forest
• 1x Hinterland Harbor
• 1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Woodland Cemetery

Instant (3)

• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Stroke of Genius
• 1x Tainted Pact

Creature (1)

• 1x Adrix and Nev, Twincasters

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Hey Guys, Thanks for dropping by! Any comments are welcomed!

Been creeping for a while and I've seen good Zaxara decks, but I couldn't find any focused/optimized ones. So heres my project with Zaxara I wanted to share with everyone.

PLEASE LEAVE ME ANY OF YOUR COMMENTS AND I WILL BE HAPPY TO LEARN FROM EVERYONE

Boundaries / Goals of the Deck:

• To efficiently kill ALL our opponents as quickly as we can
• No major budget restrictions, dual lands is as far as I wanted to go (really does help with how quickly you can get your commander out)
• NOT really flavour/theme based. While our commander is a hydra, we aren't married to the idea. You'll see lots of hydras in here, but they are here after careful thought. (check out my notable exclusion section below)

Weakness of Zaxara Decks:

We all know what the strengths are for Zaxara! Thats why we're here afterall. But I think it'd be important to understand/record what her weaknesses are so that we know how to minimize and manage them:

• Heavy commitment: To get the most out of Zaxara's ability, we are INCENTED commitment as much mana to our X spells as possible. (And why not!? The spell could get countered and we still get a big hydra body out of it!) However, if we aren't infinite with mana yet, we are forced to make tradeoffs between a more powerful spell and hydra, or options to do anything else. Having all mana tapped out at the end of your turn is necessary alot of times, but weakens our ability to respond / or even threaten a response to anything. That is why when we cast our X spells, we gotta make it count!

• Speed: Yes, we can get big boy hydras out, but having to WAIT atleast 1 turn for them to attack is basically begging all our opponents to use their removal on us. Not to forget all these hydras can easily be chump blocked by any 0/1 tokens on the floor. Telegraphing our moves and then having them blockable can easily give our opponents the edge. You will find that the win cons I have included are fairly quick, and rely very on waiting for big hydras to attack.

• Card Advantage: In trying to make our deck faster (addressing problem above), our ramp spells make our hands deplete rather quickly. Even with all the tutoring in our deck, we're merely replacing one card (our tutoring card) for another (our tutored card). Thats why I tried to include a few cards that both draw cards AND does something critical for our deck. [such as Hydroid Krasis (draw and wincon), Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner (draw and untaps things for mana), Selvala, Heart of the Wild (Draw and mana ramp).]

The Two Modes of Zaxara:

From my experience so far, I find there are really just 2 modes in which a Zaxara operate in. Infinite Mana Mode, and Other Mode.

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INFINITE MANA MODE: This one is easy. Tutor up Pemmin's Aura or Freed from the Real after you got Zaxara on the field, and you got infinite ANY COLOR mana. All you need is an X spell (practically any in this deck) and you can kill off an opponent (with a backup GIANT HYDRA as backup).

WinCon/Winning w Infinite Mana:

-Directly cast X spells that kill everyone/one person (Torment of Hailfire, Exsanguinate, Mind Grind, or my personal favourite Villainous Wealth, etc)

-Draw/Search your library for the card you need and cast it with your infinite mana (Stroke of Genius, Thassa's Intervention, Diabolic Revelation)

-Even cards that don't immediately look like wincons could definitely be! (Genesis Hydra your library, grab Simic Ascendancy and put counters on to win next turn). OR Finale of Devastation and grab Herald of Secret Streams for your new unblockable hydra to swing in for lethal, or grab Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord and sac that hydra for every opponent to die. Green Sun's Zenith can only fetch Jarad, but can be used as ramp early on as well.

-X hydras aren't really great at this, as mentioned, you have to wait. But sometimes, you don't have an alternative.

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OTHER MODE: This mode is much less straight forward. We need to win by having the mana to cast these big spells, in a big enough way, where we are still deadly.

Winning in Others mode: -Its going to sound dumb, but fetch things to get to INFINITE MANA MODE. That is also why Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy\Nyxbloom Ancient + Basalt Monolith is there as backup in case both Pemmin's Aura and Freed from the Real is removed somehow, but this will only generate infinite colourless mana.

-Use Natural Order to fetch for Nyxbloom Ancient quickly. That can easily generate enough mana for your X spells to be deadly enough.

-Tutor, Tutor, Tutor. Do not be shy to spend 10 life or more Lim-Dul's Vault if its going to set you up to win. Intuition is a huge card in this deck. Fetch for Pemmin, Freed, Regrowth together if you need your infinite. Fetch for X spells if you got none. Or just simply grab your counter spells to ensure you'll get ur spells off xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Notable Cards:

• Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy is great value to this deck. Not only does it give extra mana, but it gives us an extra tutoring target in Basalt Monolith. Imagine if someone shut down enchantments... we would have no other infinite mana combos. Also, Birds of Paradise, or "any color" mana producers now become prime targets for going infinite mana with the Pemmin and Freed from Real. All without your commander

• Intuition is a sure fire way to get atleast one of our infinite mana enchantments. Grabbing Pemmin's Aura, Freed from the Real, and Noxious Revival. Anything they choose, and you can get what you want.

• Doubling Season and Unbound Flourishing are just amazing value engines. You don't get a second hydra with Unbound since its just a copy and not a cast, but still amazing to get another spell. And if you summoned a Hydra, thats even higher value.

• The reason Simic Ascendancy is here instead of Helix Pinnacle is because of how it synergizes with Zaxara. If Simic Ascendancy is out, any X spell will create counters on it due to how Zaxara works. And if you were casting a hydra and/or you have Doubling Season or Unbound Flourishing out as well, its 1-2 spells max and you have won. Eg: With Doubling Season, just cast a X=3 Hydra, you got 18 counters. (6 on original hydra, 2x hydra token each with 6). Even if just cast a non-Hydra X=5 spells, thats 2 hydra tokens witih 10 +1/+1 each.

• Diabolic Revelation was something that I, at first, just ignored. X3BB seemed too steep of a cost right off the bat. But once I tested it, I had to keep it. It obviously works great if your in infinite mana mode, as it operates as a draw-your-whole-deck and cast card. But when you're in other mode, this card can fetch everything you need to win. Got an artifact/enchantment problem? get Beast Within. Think your infinite mana enchantments will get rekt? Grab Kinnnan/Basalt as a backup. Better yet, grab Arcane Denial to gurantee your spell resolves. When you can grab multiple cards to ensure you can win next turn, or at least deal with your immediate threats, its a win. X spell is just a bonus

Notable Exclusions:

• Finale of Revelation I actually am debating between this card and Genesis Hydra. But Genesis gives me an extra body, and can be casted in non infinite blue mana cases.

• Black Sun's Zenith This card actually nullifies any advantage that Zaxara gives. Your Hydra's appear on cast, so when black sun resolves.. you just killed your hydra token. Giving you a net of nothing. If you want creature removal, go with Mass Manipulation.

• Hooded Hydra, Hungering Hydra, Vastwood Hydra are too slow! Sure, they are resilient, and they are X spells, but sitting there waiting a turn is not ideal for this deck, especially if they can be chump blocked. But wait! You put in Hydroid Krasis, Mistcutter Hydra and Voracious Hydra, aren't you being a hypocrite? Well, they all serve an alternate purpose, such as card draw, haste to win the same turn, and fighting to remove things. Also, have you ever had the awesome situation of Unbound Flourishing and Doubling Season while casting Voracious Hydra in a non infinite mana mode? Its orgasmic :P

• Gargos, Vicious Watcher is actually my old commander. It is an amazing card, but you have to basically build around him to be useful. I only have 6 hydras in here, so it isn't critical mass for us to put him in. Also, the fight ability is completely wasted if we don't build around it.

• Doubling Cube is generally too slow. By the time you have enough mana to make it useful, you should instead close to infinite mana mode. Also, a completely useless card once you go infinite

• Theres probably some land optimization I need to do. But Cabal Coffers is only useful if we fetch it along with Urbog. But I don't find that happens consistent enough for it to matter.

• Corpsejack Menace\Branching Evolution are cards I had considered, but doubling +1/+1 on blockable hydra tokens is not that great.

• Rhonas the Indomitable was hard to cut. It was cheap to fetch, durable, deathtouch, works well with Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, Ilysian Caryatid, and could give all those BIG Hydra tokens trample. BUT it couldn't finish all opponents off. Its up to you if you want him or Jarad in the deck.

PLEASE LEAVE ME A COMMENT AND I WILL DEFINITELY REPLY. ALWAYS GOOD TO EXAMINE AND EXPLORE EVERYONE'S QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS!

Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH BUG (Sultai) 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Competitive 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Counters 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Infinite Combo 4 years ago
Date added	4 years
Last updated	9 months
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	19 - 0 Mythic Rares 50 - 4 Rares 13 - 3 Uncommons 11 - 1 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.38
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Elk 3/3 G, Food, Forest Dryad 1/1 G, Hydra 0/0 G
Folders	EDH Inspiration