Eh probably Hydra, but I'm not excited about it. Just a big haste guy.
The white Emissary is a solid playable, but again, not very exciting. The bestow is too expensive to count on it in a heroic-based aggro deck, so most of the time you're looking at a Hill Giant with a decent ability. Meh.
I might be wrong about Marauder, but a sometimes-falter + 2 damage doesn't scream first pick to me. Meh.
I like Cavern Lampad a lot, I think the bestow guys that grant evasion are far better than those that don't, even if you have to a pay a little more for it. That said, I don't think it's better than the Hydra.
I'm excited to play with Read the Bones, and I suspect it might end up being the best card in this pack. Card advantage looks to be more important in this set than most. It's still just a Divination with a bonus, though. I don't have the cajones to take it over the big green monster.
The Centaur, Minotaur, Snarecaster, Unicorn, Scholar, and Seamonster are all varying degrees of playable, but not my pick.
My issue with these "what would you pick first?" threads are the packs aren't put in context with the draft your hypothesizing. Are they always the first pack? Because not put in context people are always gonna pick the clear limited bomb, but context matters.
I chose Hydra, but my number 2 choice would be the Sealock Monster. Most people are going to choose the Hydra because of its value, so a better question with this pack is second choice. Blue is always popular at sealed where I am, getting around the Island issue. Most people are also saying that they want to play Blue. If Mistcutter weren't an option, the Sealock looks like the best choice, imo.
I always asume this is p1p1. There is no sense in other assumptions as drafting is too complex to choose in context. You have to assume this is p1p1 and you draft with random people. Otherwise these threads have no use. I think these are just for practice picking between solid cards in good packs or between mediocre cards in weak packs. You know, you can easily say that card A, B and C are good in limited but which one actually would you pick having given pack?
I'll go with these are pointless. Mainly because they're constructed by humans, and not randomly opened or simulated by a randomized process.
Totally understand people's want/need to practice decision making for Limited before participating, but this doesn't seem like a profitable way to do it.
Aqueous form, read the bones, hydra and heliod's emissary seem like the picks.
Cavern lampad, is good, but not better than emissary if you want bestow. Aquesous form is a heroic enabler evasion giver with scry. You almost always want it in your deck but it's not ridiculously powerful.
Read the bones is card selection at its finest. This card might compare to opportunity in this format.
Hydra seems like the best first pick. His pro blue randomly shuts down an opponent and his haste/ability to scale to the game situation give him the nod in my book.
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Hydra is likely the best card, but I don't think Emissary is far behind and it gives me a direction to brew. The Marauder does as well, to an even higher degree, but the commitment required to make it incredible makes me weary, and there are more draws where it's unexciting than with Emissary.
I'll go with these are pointless. Mainly because they're constructed by humans, and not randomly opened or simulated by a randomized process.
Totally understand people's want/need to practice decision making for Limited before participating, but this doesn't seem like a profitable way to do it.
These are far from pointless. This is about discussion more than 'pick bomb, pass pack'. I for one have learned more about early limited formats in these threads than anywhere else. Also, fnord generates some interesting packs with tough choices that feel more 'random' than the generator at bestiaire.
If you want to draft a full 45 with mindless bots then go at it, but you'll get no feed back or insight about your picks and you could be going about it all wrong and not even know it. Sometimes an outside perspective helps.
Keep it up fnord, I'm grateful that you take out of your personal time to generate these for us every set!
These are far from pointless. This is about discussion more than 'pick bomb, pass pack'. I for one have learned more about early limited formats in these threads than anywhere else. Also, fnord generates some interesting packs with tough choices that feel more 'random' than the generator at bestiaire.
If you want to draft a full 45 with mindless bots then go at it, but you'll get no feed back or insight about your picks and you could be going about it all wrong and not even know it. Sometimes an outside perspective helps.
Keep it up fnord, I'm grateful that you take out of your personal time to generate these for us every set!
Can't you export most of those draft sims to get opinions from others on your deck?
I'm not sure I can disagree more with the voting on this particular one. A card that can come in as a 4/4 haste for 5 is somehow better than a 4/3 for 4 that doesn't have haste? Really?
The Hydra is going to be a French vanilla creature in 80% of you match-ups, the pro-blue is almost pointless in limited. Who needs a 4/4 haste for 5 or even a 6/6 haste for 7 in this set?! ShiroRX has a point about context, but it's not the context of the individual draft but the context of the set. Hydra is behind the curve power/toughness wise pretty much all over this set. There's monsterous creatures, there's creatures that are going to way over power this guy because of Bestow. Hydra is behind the curve pretty much every single time you cast it in this limited environment!
its not about being behind the curve, the hydra is a disgusting card regardless of the set. haste and pro blue? that is SUPER relevant! I dont know how you could pass this up in a draft... seriously... HOW!
its not about being behind the curve, the hydra is a disgusting card regardless of the set. haste and pro blue? that is SUPER relevant! I dont know how you could pass this up in a draft... seriously... HOW!
Because it's only going to be relevant in 20% of your matches? Being behind the curve in the other 80% is going to suck incredibly. Being behind the curve even against blue (6 at uncommon gets you a 4/4 flyer in blue which is going to win faster since it's easier to chump block a pro-blue on the ground with your other color than to block a 4/4 in the air with green) is going to suck.
It's 100% about being behind the curve because that's where this guy falls at pretty much every mana cost below 7. Even at 8 there's probably going to be a monsterous activation or a double block to stop this guy. He has no actual evasion and no ability other than haste. That's terrible.
Who cares about a hastey 5/5 when 6 mana gets you a 6/5 trampler...at common?! Even against blue I'd say the fox is a better card, unless your opponent is mono-blue and how often does that happen in limited?
Because it's only going to be relevant in 20% of your matches? Being behind the curve in the other 80% is going to suck incredibly. Being behind the curve even against blue (6 at uncommon gets you a 4/4 flyer in blue which is going to win faster since it's easier to chump block a pro-blue on the ground with your other color than to block a 4/4 in the air with green) is going to suck.
It's 100% about being behind the curve because that's where this guy falls at pretty much every mana cost below 7. Even at 8 there's probably going to be a monsterous activation or a double block to stop this guy. He has no actual evasion and no ability other than haste. That's terrible.
Who cares about a hastey 5/5 when 6 mana gets you a 6/5 trampler...at common?! Even against blue I'd say the fox is a better card, unless your opponent is mono-blue and how often does that happen in limited?
how is it only relevant in 20% of the matches? thats a pretty random percentage lol
Im not trying to argue, i just want to have an intelligent debate, so please dont get mad at me lol
You keep saying he will always be behind the curve, but why is that bad for THIS card? you can play him early game for a low costed hasty creature, or hold him until late game and make him a HUGE hasty creature.
I think your underestimating how good HASTE is on a this kind of creature. Especially for limited. He can be a great top deck if you need a quick creature to hit the board. SURPRISE, i have a */* haste creature that is swinging at you until you answer it!
Sure the pro blue + cant be countered isn't SUPER relevant in most matches, its just icing. the HASTE is more relevant than the protection in most matchups, and thats what puts this card into the playable zone.
you cant be certain that the 4/4 flyer will win you the game faster than a */* haste creature. IF there are no blockers, the hydra will have attacked once already by the time the flyer has a chance to attack and could possibly be stronger than the flyer anyways.
sure, a 6/5 trampler is good in limited... but what you need to remember i you dont HAVE to hold the hydra until you have 6 mana to use him, like you do the 6/5 trampler (which wasn't an option in the pack we are talking about but ok...). The hydra can be whatever you want it to be... you arent stuck with this in your hand waiting for the 6th mana source to play him.. he can already be on the field bashing away.
there is a reason 107 people picked this card in this pack... just saying lol
I chose Hydra, but my number 2 choice would be the Sealock Monster. Most people are going to choose the Hydra because of its value, so a better question with this pack is second choice. Blue is always popular at sealed where I am, getting around the Island issue. Most people are also saying that they want to play Blue. If Mistcutter weren't an option, the Sealock looks like the best choice, imo.
not because of its value, but because it is clearly the best card in the pack. it has protection from blue which can be relevant in a draft, since most blue decks still play many blue creatures, not like in constructed where blue mostly only plays spells.
it has haste, which is very very relevant in limited, because your opponent does never expect a haster, if he does not know you have him AND it grows bigger and bigger the longer the game takes.
i mean there are other good picks in this pack too like: the white emmissary, the black intimidate guy, the sealock monster, read the bones.. but they are all not firstpick material, unless the pack is horrible, which can happen ;).
Because it's only going to be relevant in 20% of your matches? Being behind the curve in the other 80% is going to suck incredibly. Being behind the curve even against blue (6 at uncommon gets you a 4/4 flyer in blue which is going to win faster since it's easier to chump block a pro-blue on the ground with your other color than to block a 4/4 in the air with green) is going to suck.
It's 100% about being behind the curve because that's where this guy falls at pretty much every mana cost below 7. Even at 8 there's probably going to be a monsterous activation or a double block to stop this guy. He has no actual evasion and no ability other than haste. That's terrible.
Who cares about a hastey 5/5 when 6 mana gets you a 6/5 trampler...at common?! Even against blue I'd say the fox is a better card, unless your opponent is mono-blue and how often does that happen in limited?
Unless mono color is a thing (which it might be, there seems to be a great depth of playables and devotion rewards it), the pro blue should be relevant about 40% of games, since your opponent plays 2 colors. If everyone played mono color decks, then it would be only relevant 20% of the time but would be back-breakingly powerful in the cases it is relevant because your opponent would have no answers for it.
Having the flexibility to be played at whatever mana cost you happen to be at more than makes up for being behind the curve at that point. There is a reason cards like Volcanic Geyser are good, despite being woefully behind the curve at every point you can play it.
how is it only relevant in 20% of the matches? thats a pretty random percentage lol
I'll admit that number is going to fluctuate a lot as it pertains to matches, but not at all in the number of cards it matters against. There are 5 colors in Magic therefore there are 20% of each color. That means in any draft the Hydra will have protection from 20% of the actual cards it plays across from. Not a great percentage, IMO. As far as matches, if you were to draft all day long that percentage would probably go from 20% to as high as 37% (I'd say a single 8-man table can support 3 players of a given color, wouldn't you? That would put it at 37%, best case scenario). Even if pro-blue is relevant in 37% of matches, it's still not good enough for me because of my next point.
You keep saying he will always be behind the curve, but why is that bad for THIS card? you can play him early game for a low costed hasty creature, or hold him until late game and make him a HUGE hasty creature.
Let's break this down, then (we're going to ignore the walls in this set for this part, even though they are very relevant as they stop this guy as everything below a 5-drop).
At a 2 drop...he's unplayable. Every single 2-drop in the set is going to kill/trade with Hydra. Dumb move casting this guy turn 2.
At 3, it's a 2/2. Every 3-drop either trades with it or chumps it. There's even a couple of 2/3 3-drops that stop this guy and laugh at him. There's even a couple of 1-drops that have 2 power and stop him at 3.
At 4, this is the absolute best time to play Hydra. Most 4-drops come in at 3/3 so he's right on curve here. There's a few 4-drops at higher rarity that stop this guy cold, but in limited I try not to worry about rares/mythics. But he's still just a 3/3 vanilla against all but heavy blue decks.
At 5, he starts to get outclassed again. There's a few utility/evasion 5-drops like Sentry of the Underworld, but for the most part he's at least 1-for-1 trading. Also, bear in mind, a lot of the bestow creatures are going to come down as enchantments around turns 4-6 so that will also impact his playability.
At 6, forget it. A 5/5 on turn six is about normal so he's just going to trade against most guys and a lot of the rares/mythics/mosterous are going to sit back and lagh at this point in the game.
I think your underestimating how good HASTE is on a this kind of creature. Especially for limited. He can be a great top deck if you need a quick creature to hit the board. SURPRISE, i have a */* haste creature that is swinging at you until you answer it!
Sure the pro blue + cant be countered isn't SUPER relevant in most matches, its just icing. the HASTE is more relevant than the protection in most matchups, and thats what puts this card into the playable zone.
If you cast Hydra you are almost always going to cast him at the highest level you can which means you have no open mana for combat/removal. If you are ahead on curve (or even which is likely as I already pointed out) then a double block may be your best case scenario, but you can't use removal or a combat trick to make it a blow-out so it may just be a 2-for-1. Not bad, but not WOW!!!OMGZZ!!!1!!!!WINDMILL SLAM!
you cant be certain that the 4/4 flyer will win you the game faster than a */* haste creature. IF there are no blockers, the hydra will have attacked once already by the time the flyer has a chance to attack and could possibly be stronger than the flyer anyways.
I'll live in fairy-tale land for a while where it's easier to block a flyer than something on the ground...wait, no I won't. In this particular set, with scry back, it's going to be easy for someone to have a line of guys on the ground to chump the Hydra while they pick away at your life. Haven't you ever been at the receiving end of a U/W weenie flyer deck? It just takes a few power of points in the air to beat even the biggest ground threat, especially if the ground attacker has no trample or other evasion.
sure, a 6/5 trampler is good in limited... but what you need to remember i you dont HAVE to hold the hydra until you have 6 mana to use him, like you do the 6/5 trampler (which wasn't an option in the pack we are talking about but ok...). The hydra can be whatever you want it to be... you arent stuck with this in your hand waiting for the 6th mana source to play him.. he can already be on the field bashing away.
Bashing away at what? Cards that cost the same and have a better power/toughness? Really?
not because of its value, but because it is clearly the best card in the pack. it has protection from blue which can be relevant in a draft, since most blue decks still play many blue creatures, not like in constructed where blue mostly only plays spells.
it has haste, which is very very relevant in limited, because your opponent does never expect a haster, if he does not know you have him AND it grows bigger and bigger the longer the game takes.
Again, most of the time it's just going to slam into something that trades with it or, best case, it hits two blocker and you don't have any mana to cast a trick or removal. Big deal.
Lol of course we would all love a pile mythics and other bomb rares to be passed to us!
Please talk about how Marauder is better than Hydra as a first pick. Since that's what you chose.
Hydra is playable anytime after midgame, it's splashable, it has protection and haste and is uncounterable. It's better than the other cards here and may be the best bomb you are able to get.
I'm not sure I can disagree more with the voting on this particular one. A card that can come in as a 4/4 haste for 5 is somehow better than a 4/3 for 4 that doesn't have haste? Really?
It's not super efficient but it's scaling relevant and will hose Blue. Blue is to me generally one of the better colors in this set and having a semi-relevant beater against them seems pretty neat.
Having haste makes it relevant for a quick turn of the tables to bring in the final damage on someone who has alpha-striked without ending.
The lack of additional keywords (like Trample) makes it less attractive, no doubt, but I still think it's perfectly fine.
@dimir impersonator: By your reasoning Fireball is bad. At any cost Fireball is subpar compared to burn spells with fixed values. However, it is the flexibility which makes Fireball awesome. Hydra has the same amount of flexibility; you can play it at any point in your curve (when you're missing other drops), and it will be good or at least decent. Draw it lategame, and you have a bomby fatty ("Fireball on legs").
Lol of course we would all love a pile mythics and other bomb rares to be passed to us!
Please talk about how Marauder is better than Hydra as a first pick. Since that's what you chose.
Hydra is playable anytime after midgame, it's splashable, it has protection and haste and is uncounterable. It's better than the other cards here and may be the best bomb you are able to get.
I just figured we were in crazy town where a 1-for-1 combat trade is somehow first pick worthy so I went reaching for the stars!
@dimir impersonator: By your reasoning Fireball is bad. At any cost Fireball is subpar compared to burn spells with fixed values. However, it is the flexibility which makes Fireball awesome. Hydra has the same amount of flexibility; you can play it at any point in your curve (when you're missing other drops), and it will be good or at least decent. Draw it lategame, and you have a bomby fatty ("Fireball on legs").
Can we stop comparing this to removal? Hydra is nothing like fireball and especially nothing like Volcanic Geyser. Those cards are versatile not only because of the "X" in their cost, but because they can target your opponents best threat, be it a giant bomb or a 3/2 with intimidate. Hydra can only attack. The opponent makes the decisions on what creature to throw in front of it and how it benefits them to do so. Geyser has the added benefit of being an instant so it can stop things like combat tricks and aura's. Hydra cannot. Hydra is not fireball on legs. Stop this madness, please.
Again, for those not paying attention, half the turns this card is cast it's under curve and late in the game you were probably winning already.
I just want to point out the text on my pick for the pack "When ~ETB 'X' creatures gain haste and are unblockable this turn where 'X' is your devotion to black". That is a card you want to see go into the red zone. That is a card that will win way more games than Hydra. Mogis's Marauder is going to go up in pick value quick.
Emissary is also a much stronger pick because it fits into an aggressive deck that wants to win before too many bestow cards are cast and before anything goes all monstery by tapping down the most effective blocker each turn.
@Dimir impersonator: I agree that Mogis's Marauders is a wonderful card and in a vacuum I'd pick it over Hydra. However in context Green has access to a lot of mana and relevant creatures while my take is that Black is rather creature-light. Most of their mid-game creatures are directly bad in combat and their late-game is only carried by Overlord (which I figure I wont get in limited). Otherwise you're more or less dependent on splashing another color like Red to get Minotaur Tribal or green for relevant creatures.
Blue doesn't need it (evasive fliers) and White is... well more mono-color orientated.
Overall I feel like Black is more a support-color and I would hate to pick up my support color instead of trying to go deep in a main-color as the first thing in limited.
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Practice for Khans of Tarkir Limited:
Draft: (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5)
Aqueous Form is also very, very good, imo. Unblockable, scry 1 for 1 CMC is nutso.
The white Emissary is a solid playable, but again, not very exciting. The bestow is too expensive to count on it in a heroic-based aggro deck, so most of the time you're looking at a Hill Giant with a decent ability. Meh.
I might be wrong about Marauder, but a sometimes-falter + 2 damage doesn't scream first pick to me. Meh.
I like Cavern Lampad a lot, I think the bestow guys that grant evasion are far better than those that don't, even if you have to a pay a little more for it. That said, I don't think it's better than the Hydra.
I'm excited to play with Read the Bones, and I suspect it might end up being the best card in this pack. Card advantage looks to be more important in this set than most. It's still just a Divination with a bonus, though. I don't have the cajones to take it over the big green monster.
The Centaur, Minotaur, Snarecaster, Unicorn, Scholar, and Seamonster are all varying degrees of playable, but not my pick.
UW Control (:symu: :symw:)
I'll go with these are pointless. Mainly because they're constructed by humans, and not randomly opened or simulated by a randomized process.
Totally understand people's want/need to practice decision making for Limited before participating, but this doesn't seem like a profitable way to do it.
UW Control (:symu: :symw:)
The Hydra is tempting but I like the versatility the Emissary can give
Cavern lampad, is good, but not better than emissary if you want bestow. Aquesous form is a heroic enabler evasion giver with scry. You almost always want it in your deck but it's not ridiculously powerful.
Read the bones is card selection at its finest. This card might compare to opportunity in this format.
Hydra seems like the best first pick. His pro blue randomly shuts down an opponent and his haste/ability to scale to the game situation give him the nod in my book.
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UW Control (:symu: :symw:)
These are far from pointless. This is about discussion more than 'pick bomb, pass pack'. I for one have learned more about early limited formats in these threads than anywhere else. Also, fnord generates some interesting packs with tough choices that feel more 'random' than the generator at bestiaire.
If you want to draft a full 45 with mindless bots then go at it, but you'll get no feed back or insight about your picks and you could be going about it all wrong and not even know it. Sometimes an outside perspective helps.
Keep it up fnord, I'm grateful that you take out of your personal time to generate these for us every set!
Can't you export most of those draft sims to get opinions from others on your deck?
UW Control (:symu: :symw:)
The Hydra is going to be a French vanilla creature in 80% of you match-ups, the pro-blue is almost pointless in limited. Who needs a 4/4 haste for 5 or even a 6/6 haste for 7 in this set?! ShiroRX has a point about context, but it's not the context of the individual draft but the context of the set. Hydra is behind the curve power/toughness wise pretty much all over this set. There's monsterous creatures, there's creatures that are going to way over power this guy because of Bestow. Hydra is behind the curve pretty much every single time you cast it in this limited environment!
Thanks you very much DarkNightCavalier for the Sig.
Because it's only going to be relevant in 20% of your matches?
It's 100% about being behind the curve because that's where this guy falls at pretty much every mana cost below 7. Even at 8 there's probably going to be a monsterous activation or a double block to stop this guy. He has no actual evasion and no ability other than haste. That's terrible.
Who cares about a hastey 5/5 when 6 mana gets you a 6/5 trampler...at common?! Even against blue I'd say the fox is a better card, unless your opponent is mono-blue and how often does that happen in limited?
how is it only relevant in 20% of the matches? thats a pretty random percentage lol
Im not trying to argue, i just want to have an intelligent debate, so please dont get mad at me lol
You keep saying he will always be behind the curve, but why is that bad for THIS card? you can play him early game for a low costed hasty creature, or hold him until late game and make him a HUGE hasty creature.
I think your underestimating how good HASTE is on a this kind of creature. Especially for limited. He can be a great top deck if you need a quick creature to hit the board. SURPRISE, i have a */* haste creature that is swinging at you until you answer it!
Sure the pro blue + cant be countered isn't SUPER relevant in most matches, its just icing. the HASTE is more relevant than the protection in most matchups, and thats what puts this card into the playable zone.
you cant be certain that the 4/4 flyer will win you the game faster than a */* haste creature. IF there are no blockers, the hydra will have attacked once already by the time the flyer has a chance to attack and could possibly be stronger than the flyer anyways.
sure, a 6/5 trampler is good in limited... but what you need to remember i you dont HAVE to hold the hydra until you have 6 mana to use him, like you do the 6/5 trampler (which wasn't an option in the pack we are talking about but ok...). The hydra can be whatever you want it to be... you arent stuck with this in your hand waiting for the 6th mana source to play him.. he can already be on the field bashing away.
there is a reason 107 people picked this card in this pack... just saying
Thanks you very much DarkNightCavalier for the Sig.
not because of its value, but because it is clearly the best card in the pack. it has protection from blue which can be relevant in a draft, since most blue decks still play many blue creatures, not like in constructed where blue mostly only plays spells.
it has haste, which is very very relevant in limited, because your opponent does never expect a haster, if he does not know you have him AND it grows bigger and bigger the longer the game takes.
i mean there are other good picks in this pack too like: the white emmissary, the black intimidate guy, the sealock monster, read the bones.. but they are all not firstpick material, unless the pack is horrible, which can happen ;).
the hydra is definitly the bomb you want to play.
Unless mono color is a thing (which it might be, there seems to be a great depth of playables and devotion rewards it), the pro blue should be relevant about 40% of games, since your opponent plays 2 colors. If everyone played mono color decks, then it would be only relevant 20% of the time but would be back-breakingly powerful in the cases it is relevant because your opponent would have no answers for it.
Having the flexibility to be played at whatever mana cost you happen to be at more than makes up for being behind the curve at that point. There is a reason cards like Volcanic Geyser are good, despite being woefully behind the curve at every point you can play it.
I'll admit that number is going to fluctuate a lot as it pertains to matches, but not at all in the number of cards it matters against. There are 5 colors in Magic therefore there are 20% of each color. That means in any draft the Hydra will have protection from 20% of the actual cards it plays across from. Not a great percentage, IMO. As far as matches, if you were to draft all day long that percentage would probably go from 20% to as high as 37% (I'd say a single 8-man table can support 3 players of a given color, wouldn't you? That would put it at 37%, best case scenario). Even if pro-blue is relevant in 37% of matches, it's still not good enough for me because of my next point.
I'm not mad, I thought I was having an intelligent debate.
Let's break this down, then (we're going to ignore the walls in this set for this part, even though they are very relevant as they stop this guy as everything below a 5-drop).
At a 2 drop...he's unplayable. Every single 2-drop in the set is going to kill/trade with Hydra. Dumb move casting this guy turn 2.
At 3, it's a 2/2. Every 3-drop either trades with it or chumps it. There's even a couple of 2/3 3-drops that stop this guy and laugh at him. There's even a couple of 1-drops that have 2 power and stop him at 3.
At 4, this is the absolute best time to play Hydra. Most 4-drops come in at 3/3 so he's right on curve here. There's a few 4-drops at higher rarity that stop this guy cold, but in limited I try not to worry about rares/mythics. But he's still just a 3/3 vanilla against all but heavy blue decks.
At 5, he starts to get outclassed again. There's a few utility/evasion 5-drops like Sentry of the Underworld, but for the most part he's at least 1-for-1 trading. Also, bear in mind, a lot of the bestow creatures are going to come down as enchantments around turns 4-6 so that will also impact his playability.
At 6, forget it. A 5/5 on turn six is about normal so he's just going to trade against most guys and a lot of the rares/mythics/mosterous are going to sit back and lagh at this point in the game.
At 7, I'd better have something better to cast or something to pump than to drop a 6/6 with haste (Abhorrent Overloard, mosterfy my Stormbreath Dragon or my Polukranos, World Eater?).
But, he has haste, you say! Which brings me to my next, and maybe most important point:
If you cast Hydra you are almost always going to cast him at the highest level you can which means you have no open mana for combat/removal. If you are ahead on curve (or even which is likely as I already pointed out) then a double block may be your best case scenario, but you can't use removal or a combat trick to make it a blow-out so it may just be a 2-for-1. Not bad, but not WOW!!!OMGZZ!!!1!!!!WINDMILL SLAM!
I'll live in fairy-tale land for a while where it's easier to block a flyer than something on the ground...wait, no I won't. In this particular set, with scry back, it's going to be easy for someone to have a line of guys on the ground to chump the Hydra while they pick away at your life. Haven't you ever been at the receiving end of a U/W weenie flyer deck? It just takes a few power of points in the air to beat even the biggest ground threat, especially if the ground attacker has no trample or other evasion.
Bashing away at what? Cards that cost the same and have a better power/toughness? Really?
Because they all forgot how bad Slime Molding was? Oh, wait! This has haste! It's totally better!
Again, most of the time it's just going to slam into something that trades with it or, best case, it hits two blocker and you don't have any mana to cast a trick or removal. Big deal.
Lol of course we would all love a pile mythics and other bomb rares to be passed to us!
Please talk about how Marauder is better than Hydra as a first pick. Since that's what you chose.
Hydra is playable anytime after midgame, it's splashable, it has protection and haste and is uncounterable. It's better than the other cards here and may be the best bomb you are able to get.
Having haste makes it relevant for a quick turn of the tables to bring in the final damage on someone who has alpha-striked without ending.
The lack of additional keywords (like Trample) makes it less attractive, no doubt, but I still think it's perfectly fine.
I just figured we were in crazy town where a 1-for-1 combat trade is somehow first pick worthy so I went reaching for the stars!
Speaking of ridiculous comparisons:
Can we stop comparing this to removal? Hydra is nothing like fireball and especially nothing like Volcanic Geyser. Those cards are versatile not only because of the "X" in their cost, but because they can target your opponents best threat, be it a giant bomb or a 3/2 with intimidate. Hydra can only attack. The opponent makes the decisions on what creature to throw in front of it and how it benefits them to do so. Geyser has the added benefit of being an instant so it can stop things like combat tricks and aura's. Hydra cannot. Hydra is not fireball on legs. Stop this madness, please.
Again, for those not paying attention, half the turns this card is cast it's under curve and late in the game you were probably winning already.
I just want to point out the text on my pick for the pack "When ~ETB 'X' creatures gain haste and are unblockable this turn where 'X' is your devotion to black". That is a card you want to see go into the red zone. That is a card that will win way more games than Hydra. Mogis's Marauder is going to go up in pick value quick.
Emissary is also a much stronger pick because it fits into an aggressive deck that wants to win before too many bestow cards are cast and before anything goes all monstery by tapping down the most effective blocker each turn.
Blue doesn't need it (evasive fliers) and White is... well more mono-color orientated.
Overall I feel like Black is more a support-color and I would hate to pick up my support color instead of trying to go deep in a main-color as the first thing in limited.