Pointed Discussion

They can get pretty creative with these hydras.

Awww, who's a cute little hydra? You are! Yes, you are!!!

*eats Tree of Redemption*

*eyes Emrakul next*

In GW, feed it Yoked Oxen...

Trample makes it. Too bad it's a tap power. I'm a big fan of all of these hydras. 4/5

It's anti-removal tech for hydra themed decks

Wall of Frost, Hover Barrier and Guardians of Meletis are reasonable targets in Standard at 3 CMC each for 7 or 6 +1/+1 counters.

If you want to ramp into it Murmuring Phantasm is and has 5 toughness.

Out of standard, Wall of Junk ramps nicely at 2 CMC for an 0/7. Wall of Shards is for a 1/8 but if you can't sac it right away, an opponent will gain 1 life.

Turn 1: Temple Garden, Yoked Ox
Turn 2: Island, Kiora's Follower
Turn 3: Swamp, This guy
Turn 4: Forest, Corpsejack Menace, Sac the Hatchling for 8 counters, untap with Kiora's Follower and swing for 10 trample. >:D

4 color standard deck based around this?? PRO TOUR, BABY.

This is an awful card.

First, let's assume no ramping and I just play this turn 3.

Turn 1: Forest, other stuff (Experiment One, maybe)
Turn 2: Plains, Yoked Ox.
Turn 3: Forest, This.
Turn 4: Instead of attacking, tap this to eat Yoked Ox. Now I have a tapped 6/6.
Turn 5: Now I have a 6/6 that I can swing with. That I played two turns ago and gave my opponent every opportunity to Doom Blade / Mizzium Mortars, or even Magma Jet or Shock. Oh, and if it gets that big and then gets Doom Bladed, it ate another of my cards in the process. Great.

Let's have a slightly more rosy scenario. It *is* green, after all. Ramping is what it does:

Turn 1: Forest, Elvish Mystic.
Turn 2: Forest, This
Turn 3: Land, Experiment One, Guardians of Meletis. End of Opponent's turn, sac the Guardian to this.
Turn 4: Something else to evolve Experiment One again. Now you finally have an 8/8 trampler to swing with.

That's basically the best-case scenario you can hope for with this card. That's a lot of pieces falling just into the right place to make it work.

The P/T this thing potentially gets to isn't bad. That's not the issue. But it eats cards to get there and does so really slowly. That the only way it will live to see those numbers is if your opponent's deck isn't working correctly. If they can't deal with a 2/2 sitting around for two turns, they deserve to lose.

*Maybe* someone will figure out a way to abuse tokens with this. But that won't make it work *faster*.

I run a deck that has Kalonian Hydra as one of the finishers. Even that's iffy a lot of the times, because the thing sits there as a big, dumb 4/4, begging to be Doom Bladed for a turn, or direct damaged for 4, until I can swing with it. This sits around uselessly for twice as long, and is a 2/2 while it's sitting.

This thing has the same giant "Doom Blade me" sign painted on him, but sits there for *two* turns before it becomes useful in any way, then eats another creature on your side in the process.

You can give this haste, but then it's just as fast as a non-haste creature, because it's tapped for a turn. And you still lose a creature.

This card is a lot like Triad of Fates to me. I absolutely love what they're trying to do with it. But mechanically, it's just too slow in getting there to be useful.
Maybe it would be fun to steal an opponent's Desecration Demon with Portent of Betrayal or similar, then sac it to this. But I don't think combos like that are enough to really make this care *consistantly* useful.

I see the point of this, but comparitively I will probably always choose Phantom Nantuko for my Stonebrow EDH...

I don't care about how useful or practical or whatever this guy is, he's a hydra, and for that I love him. Really hoping I get this and the Nessian Wilds Ravager when Gods is released.

Eat Vastwood Hydra to get double the counters! Who said cannibalism was a bad thing?!? =P

I think if I were my opponent I'd just be waiting in anticipation for this card to be activated so that I would bring out a removal spell and 2-for-1 my opponent. That being the case, I think I'd rather steer clear of this card for my own deck.

This is a nice design, and that's what makes me sad. In another block, it would've made the perfect Ooze!

@Arachobia No. Traproot Kami is not for early game.
@Pyromosh I think if you're playing against black, you're boarding this out for Witchstalker. However for your removal debacle, I'd say Mortal's Resolve fixes that issue, as well as Ranger's Guile. This guy screams Simic though, so probably Simic Charm or Mizzium Skin is in the cards. Depends on the meta for your area really.

In my opinion though, he'll be best midrange, after you have your Master Biomancer out. Then again, who knows? But I agree with the synergy with Kiora's Follower. He'll probably be good in Rock.

How amazing this would be if it had vigilance...

Traproot Kami (in a chaos game)

You're Welcome.

Bolding the 'chaos game' part...

I like this guy , we got a bunch of pretties hydras in standard!
This must not be your first threat but your backdoor one.
Keep on annoying your opponent with something else and with him knowing you can use this to back up your first threat.
This can be fun with triton tactics, attack , untap at instant speed and retap to boost!

"Sir Scourge, welcome to our fine restaurant: "Dining with Golgari".
Here is the menu. I would recommend having
grilled Tree of Redemption along with braised Deadbridge Goliath. I hope you also would taste our world-famous snacks, including roasted bones from Tenacious Dead and BBQ-saused Slitherheads. Our tastiest beverage tonight is a bottle of Death's Presence, right from the 90's.
Also, tonight there will be fantastic music show including our great singer Corpsejack Menace and our famous band: "The Blood Artists".
Don't forget to enjoy your meal!
Can I show you a free table please?"

Will work wonder is a Xenagos EDH deck. Buff a strong creature attack. Have this guy eat it. Then next turn swing with him for massive damage. Probably not the best in other formats though.

Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Nemesis of Mortals
Nighthowler
Grisly Salvage
Commune with the gods

Can you use Phyrexian Dreadnought with this card? or would you have to sacrifice it too in the process?

Pretty neat with Hold the Gates, both for the toughness boost for it's snacks and the ability to attack and eat at the same time.

this thing is going to be the bomb in my Kresh deck. Screw all you spikes who have no imagination. :)~

Here is how I believe how people should use this card, don't kill your creature to it UNLESS they are trying to use a skill spell on it; therefore they wasted a kill spell and you have a stronger creature. Also here is the secret standard card for him burst of strength

This is not a bad card. It's fantastic anti-removal. Keep him as a blocker, If someone tries to kill off something you have, eat it instead. Kiora's follower can untap him if you MUST have that, but usually thats not the case. And even though nobody but me seems to be running Bioshift, I have a lovely little corpsejack menace-Tribute Deck that people can't seem to lockdown any threats in, other than corpsejack.

Just because of this guy and bioshift. Nobody wants to blow removal on him if there's a corpsejack/kalonian/Nessian ravager/or any other immediate threat on the field. He's just tactical removal prevention.... My opinions

@ pyromosh
While I agree that the tap cost is less than desirable, you're thinking about this guy in the wrong way.

Don't sac on your turn, sac at the end of your opponent's turn so you're not leaving yourself open.

Yes he has a big "Shock me" sign on him, but he's only 3 mana. Next turn you can play Kiora and they've already used up their shock on your hydra.

Late game, he's an excellent shield for your fatties. Either they waste a Doom Blade on this guy, they try to kill your fatty and you just sac it in response, or they use two kill-spells. This means you get to keep your P/T on the field, or they have to use double the kill-spells. I think that's excellent efficiency for 3cmc splashable.

Yes he may be somewhat slow, but there are loads of standard and even in-block cards that help get the ball rolling on him. Yes Kalonian Hydra is faster when it hits the table, but Kalonian Hydra is Mythic, and costs 2 more. Strictly harder to come by, and ends up taking at least as many turns to be a threat.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think this guy will be single-handedly winning tournaments for anyone, but he's nothing to scoff at when you pull him out of a pack.

@pyromosh: Scourge of Skola Vale is a way to discourage removal and turn toughness into attacking power, not a straight aggro creature. (And the best-case scenario probably involves Corpsejack Menace.)

As Grakling mentioned, always wait until your opponent's end step or respond to removal. He could work in a Phenax mill deck as a backup plan.

@Achvile: Yes, another fun thing to do with Phyrexian Dreadnought! When it enters the battlefield, choose to sacrifice the Dreadnought (this is not a cost, so it will happen when the ability resolves), and in response sacrifice it to the Scourge.

Huh, interesting. Copying my comment over from M12's Primordial Hydra, I said this back in the day:

"Have to wonder where they'll go from here if they continue this Hydra trend.

Hypothetical Hydra
CMC: XG
P/T: 0/0
Hypothetical Hydra enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters on it.
1, Remove a +1/+1 counter from Hypothetical Hydra: Put a 1/1 green Head creature token onto the battlefield.
Sacrifice a creature: Put X +1/+1 counters on Hypothetical Hydra."

I was off on the idea of X-ponential growth, though it seems the "Hydra eats something to grow" idea wound up coming true. I'm sure it's just coincidence, but it's nice to see little moments of "Ooh, I think like the devs do!" sometimes.

*Pokes head in* AHEM! Instill Energy. You are welcome.

@pyromosh Judging a card based on its propensity to get removed is a bad way to judge a card. There are some great uses for this card, but trying to get it out and sac a high toughness creature to it ASAP isn't one of them. This works well in a Golgari deck or in a Simic deck that's boosting creatures with counters and cards that can untap like Kiora's Follower. Just because it doesn't fit an aggro/ramp deck doesn't make it awful.

I feel like that's the downfall with the way people think about Magic today. This card doesn't win on turn 3 and it takes more than 1 turn to become an absolute power house, awful card!

With all that said, I was disappointed that this has to tap to sac a creature, but I also understand the need. It would be nicer if you could pay 1G and sac a creature so you could still attack the turn you sac.

Also: Death's Presence, Vastwood Hydra, Worldspine Wurm

In any creature-heavy deck this guy is a champ. Play him early, then play a big guy like deadbridge goliath next turn. When your opponent wastes a spell to kill the goliath, Scourge scarfs it down instead. Now Scourge is a big ol' 7/7 trampler for 3 cmc that your opponent has to waste another kill spell on.

meh, a 3 cmc reusable sacrifice enabler, allowing clever use of toughness creatures, and allows you to chump block and sacrifice to not lose board presence...

with more cards that benefit from death, can become annoying.

If this had hexproof, it would run this format.

Long story short, this thing can get nasty. With the high amount of hexproof giving cards now, I run this in a Rubinia EDH. I steal your creature, kill it, and smash you with it's toughness. Protecting it is easy enough, as white, blue, and green all have ways to keep things alive, like Fanatical Devotion, which is just as strong in it. Add other steal cards, like beguiler. Hope they are playing black, red, or blue control. Oh wait, birthing pod and Teferi...talk about hopeless...

Still, outside of that, it is a tad slow. Protecting it would have to be a priority, which can slow you down...

a solid 3/5, imo

What's better than feeding this baby your creatures?

Feeding it other players' creatures obviously!

Act of Treason Disharmony

For fun, feed a Bearer of the Heavens to this creature, then cast Mortal's Resolve on it right afterwards. :D