As not-so-great as the Hydra could be things have to be kept in perspectives.

This is a green creature that generates card advantage. Ok not in ideal conditions, but you put a permanent into play, this is a real hardcore card advantage.

Depending on how you see it the Hydra is a better/worst version of Cascade. But, to me, definitely a great addition to green/x midrange decks. When you see that PT JOU was a battle of green/x midrange decks, I think the Hydra has a fair shot in this.

Also, with Courser, knowing the top card of your deck may help to cast your Hydra in better conditions.

Finally, with multi-colored permanents coming in KoT, we should expect to have powerful card with “complicated” casting costs (say 3 different colored mana in the cost), Hydra is just perfect to put into play these cards. With more cards, more choices and with more colors, more power.

I really hope Hydra don’t show up to much at PT Portland so I can get as many Hydra on MTGO at a very cheap price.

In the immortal words of yoda, “You will be.” This deck makes so much mana that I regularly cast hydra with x as 7, which is exactly what you want to be doing. Test some games with it and you won’t be disappointed.

I haven’t thought about replacing any cards yet but it would probably have to be another two drop though. My first thought was to add voyaging Satyr in addition to caryatid. If not that, then something that provides two devotion. We’ll see what khans brings for us though.

Project X was a fringe deck but yeah it did use chord to find the combo. It wasn’t prominent nor did it help the price pull out of bulk rare status. I’m glad you brought it up though. It’s fun to think about old decks like that.

As far as genesis hydra goes. When you don’t have polukranos or your hand is clogged with multiple hydras/Chords is usually when making the small hydras comes up. Basically on your small hydra you are just hoping to hit anything you can put into play. Often the math isn’t good and sometimes you whiff but especially if you have nykthos, your first hydra will lead to a better next couple of turns.

Hope that helps.

First of all I love this kind of Green (devotion) decks. I feel like M15 definitely favored green over other colors.

I have two comments:

– Chord of calling. I agree that it was almost unseen when in Standard with Ravnica. However there was at least one deck using it, Project X, played (if I’m correct) at the Worlds by Levy and other belgium guys. This deck was a combo/mid range deck based on the interaction between Saffi eriskdotter and Crypt champion. The deck was pretty good but didn’t get much attention and popularity because too tricky and complicated to play, Chord of Calling was a 4-of and a key card to kill and to surprise your opp.

– I’m also a fan of Genesis Hydra. If you have played the deck often enough, How good is it to you play the hydra with X=3 (since 40 cards in the deck won’t come into play with X=3), if my maths are not too bad you still are likely to reveal at least 1 card to put into play, but how valuable is an X=3?. Or are you waiting for X=4 or more before playing the Genesis Hydra?

Thanks