Well, that's why you do it in scion, with access to every tutor imaginable. Throw in mana rocks, etc., and especially without the french banlist you are almost guaranteed a turn-2 or -3 druid.
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forgive me but where is the benefit? Forgive me but what, You mill for a basic land okay... Um.. Howling mine?
Seriously whats going on with him, why is he so amazing. i do not see the proper combo. What if you mill out the combo pieces you need due to a land in the wrong spot? And if you don't run basic lands. Congrats you forced a lock and they kick you out so they can play. I see one use for him. mono green heavy land.
forgive me but where is the benefit? Forgive me but what, You mill for a basic land okay... Um.. Howling mine?
Seriously whats going on with him, why is he so amazing. i do not see the proper combo. What if you mill out the combo pieces you need due to a land in the wrong spot? And if you don't run basic lands. Congrats you forced a lock and they kick you out so they can play. I see one use for him. mono green heavy land.
You mill your whole deck, there are no basic lands in the deck. There's a Narcomoeba in there. Probably a Bloodghast. Dread Return.
There are lots of ways to win with a hundred cards in your graveyard, many of which involve Necrotic Ooze.
forgive me but where is the benefit? Forgive me but what, You mill for a basic land okay... Um.. Howling mine?
Seriously whats going on with him, why is he so amazing. i do not see the proper combo. What if you mill out the combo pieces you need due to a land in the wrong spot? And if you don't run basic lands. Congrats you forced a lock and they kick you out so they can play. I see one use for him. mono green heavy land.
he's ok for dredgy decks as a normal card.
the most infamous use, as you guessed, is with zero basic lands and one of a few different instant wins in the early turns of the game.
it's a powerful, competitive deck. Sure people will hate it, but that's not the point. It's not trying to make the game fun, it's the deck for people who want to win no matter what.
Those can all fetch HD T1 within reason (some would need a good hand, but not necessarily a 'god hand'), and there are plenty of other cards that can fetch him a couple turns later.
Well there are actually a ton of them in a fully optimized list. If you wanna go for turn 2 its a little more difficult but definitely do able. Turn 3 is cake.
He combos with cards like Crypt Champion and Necrotic Ooze and Bloodghast and Narcomoeba. He is purely a combo deck, and just works in that combo. Look up Scion of the Ur-Dragon Hermit Druid Combo on google, find the link that leads to an MTGS list, and look at the explanation. It makes more sense that way.
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How does bloodghast Help? You are getting no land, it remains in your graveyard. You have to have a land in your hand (Which is understandably, provided you dropped him turn 2.
To add to it, You need to avoid a forced draw.
Plus, wouldn't you have locked yourself. It says reveal the top card of your deck. Not draw or anything, do you stop when your deck is gone? Or are you suppose to keep milling even after 0, i mean you still have not revealed your basic land. If you have any recursion at all, it doesn't activate until you have revealed a land which you have not. Really I do not see Hermit druid useful in EDH.
The goal of Hermit Druid is to Dread Return a hasted Necrotic Ooze to the table. You then have the basic Necrotic Ooze combos in the deck to go infinite and kill everyone.
How does bloodghast Help? You are getting no land, it remains in your graveyard. You have to have a land in your hand (Which is understandably, provided you dropped him turn 2.
Yes, you would need a land in hand, but as you will see Bloodghast is not absolutely necessary to combo out.
Plus, wouldn't you have locked yourself. It says reveal the top card of your deck. Not draw or anything, do you stop when your deck is gone? Or are you suppose to keep milling even after 0, i mean you still have not revealed your basic land. If you have any recursion at all, it doesn't activate until you have revealed a land which you have not.
It does not "lock you out". With no basic lands in your deck, you basically reveal your entire librar ywhen you activate Hermit Druid. You will not get a land, but you will put all the revealed cards into your graveyard (which is what you want; you don't care about the land)
Really I do not see Hermit druid useful in EDH.
Hermit Druid Combo is a very specific deck/set of plays that is a very efficient way to kill an entire table of players with minimal effort.
Once your graveyard is in your library after you activate Hermit Druid, Narcomeoba will pop into play because it was put into your graveyard from the library. If you have blue mana available, you can pay U to Unearth Fatestitcher so that you now have three creatures in play to pay the Flashback cost on Dread Return. If for some reason you don't, then playing a land from your hand will allow you to get Bloodghast back into play.
Anyway, you can kill people a multitude of ways once you get to that point. The two most popular ways are:
Plan A) Target Crypt Champion with the Dread Return, getting Saffi Eriksdotter from the graveyard and loop them in and out of play, finally using Crypt Champion the last time to put Caller of the Claw into play. Since Crypt Champion and Saffi went to the graveyard a few billion times, you get a lot of 2/2 Bears from Caller with which to attack your opponents to death (they will also have Haste with Anger in the graveyard).
Plan b) Target Necrotic Ooze with Dread Return with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, and Devoted Druid in the graveyard. If you are alos running Anger you can make infinite 3/2 Necrotic Oozes and attack OR you can also include Moselhoarder to turn those -1/-1 counters into red mana and Shivan Hellkite to turn that red mana into damaging all of your opponents. It is for this second possibility that people run this as a Plan B as it avoids the combat step.
Wow, thanks guys. This was a great discussion. I totally get it now.
One last question: What's Scion got to do with it? Is it just for the five colors? Or is he just inconspicuous, so people don't auto assume you're playing hermit and leave counter mana up?
Never mind. I found the backup wincon.
Another one that works well is to stack scions ability to make him a moltensteel dragon, pump, then make him skithyrix.
Wow, thanks guys. This was a great discussion. I totally get it now.
One last question: What's Scion got to do with it? Is it just for the five colors? Or is he just inconspicuous, so people don't auto assume you're playing hermit and leave counter mana up?
Never mind. I found the backup wincon.
Another one that works well is to stack scions ability to make him a moltensteel dragon, pump, then make him skithyrix.
Scion can make for backup combos. There's a fair amount of leftover deck-space after you fit all of the Hermit Druid stuff in, so you can add the standard Moltensteel Dragon-Skittles Scion combo in on top of that pretty easily.
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Nobody mentioned that Dragon Tyrant is also an option instead of Skittles. You really don't need redundancy, but there is that as well.
Any five-color commander can be a Hermit Druid commander. But do be aware that the minute you play Hermit Druid, everyone is already thinking about what gravehate to add next time, and wondering why the Stax player didn't draw Leyline of the Void or Scavenging Ooze.
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I know how the combo works, but all of the primers I read talk about how the plan is to turn 2 into hermitting your deck to grave and combo off.
How are they guaranteeing these plays? How many tutors can you cram in to get off on turn one to grab hermit?
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Seriously whats going on with him, why is he so amazing. i do not see the proper combo. What if you mill out the combo pieces you need due to a land in the wrong spot? And if you don't run basic lands. Congrats you forced a lock and they kick you out so they can play. I see one use for him. mono green heavy land.
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You mill your whole deck, there are no basic lands in the deck. There's a Narcomoeba in there. Probably a Bloodghast. Dread Return.
There are lots of ways to win with a hundred cards in your graveyard, many of which involve Necrotic Ooze.
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he's ok for dredgy decks as a normal card.
the most infamous use, as you guessed, is with zero basic lands and one of a few different instant wins in the early turns of the game.
it's a powerful, competitive deck. Sure people will hate it, but that's not the point. It's not trying to make the game fun, it's the deck for people who want to win no matter what.
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Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Those can all fetch HD T1 within reason (some would need a good hand, but not necessarily a 'god hand'), and there are plenty of other cards that can fetch him a couple turns later.
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If you have some cheap free mana rock like a mox you can even use demonic tutor or whatnot.
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To add to it, You need to avoid a forced draw.
Plus, wouldn't you have locked yourself. It says reveal the top card of your deck. Not draw or anything, do you stop when your deck is gone? Or are you suppose to keep milling even after 0, i mean you still have not revealed your basic land. If you have any recursion at all, it doesn't activate until you have revealed a land which you have not. Really I do not see Hermit druid useful in EDH.
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Like many cards, it is truly broken if you decide to build around it.
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Yes, you would need a land in hand, but as you will see Bloodghast is not absolutely necessary to combo out.
The deck runs Krosan Reclamation, Memory's Journey, and Pull From Eternity as contingencies.
It does not "lock you out". With no basic lands in your deck, you basically reveal your entire librar ywhen you activate Hermit Druid. You will not get a land, but you will put all the revealed cards into your graveyard (which is what you want; you don't care about the land)
Hermit Druid Combo is a very specific deck/set of plays that is a very efficient way to kill an entire table of players with minimal effort.
Once your graveyard is in your library after you activate Hermit Druid, Narcomeoba will pop into play because it was put into your graveyard from the library. If you have blue mana available, you can pay U to Unearth Fatestitcher so that you now have three creatures in play to pay the Flashback cost on Dread Return. If for some reason you don't, then playing a land from your hand will allow you to get Bloodghast back into play.
Anyway, you can kill people a multitude of ways once you get to that point. The two most popular ways are:
Plan A) Target Crypt Champion with the Dread Return, getting Saffi Eriksdotter from the graveyard and loop them in and out of play, finally using Crypt Champion the last time to put Caller of the Claw into play. Since Crypt Champion and Saffi went to the graveyard a few billion times, you get a lot of 2/2 Bears from Caller with which to attack your opponents to death (they will also have Haste with Anger in the graveyard).
Plan b) Target Necrotic Ooze with Dread Return with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, and Devoted Druid in the graveyard. If you are alos running Anger you can make infinite 3/2 Necrotic Oozes and attack OR you can also include Moselhoarder to turn those -1/-1 counters into red mana and Shivan Hellkite to turn that red mana into damaging all of your opponents. It is for this second possibility that people run this as a Plan B as it avoids the combat step.
Plan c) Target Angel of Glory's Rise with Dread Return, putting Azami, Lady of Scrolls and Laboratory Maniac popping into play. Use Azami's ability to draw a card with no cards in your library and you win.
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One last question: What's Scion got to do with it? Is it just for the five colors? Or is he just inconspicuous, so people don't auto assume you're playing hermit and leave counter mana up?
Never mind. I found the backup wincon.
Another one that works well is to stack scions ability to make him a moltensteel dragon, pump, then make him skithyrix.
Scion can make for backup combos. There's a fair amount of leftover deck-space after you fit all of the Hermit Druid stuff in, so you can add the standard Moltensteel Dragon-Skittles Scion combo in on top of that pretty easily.
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Any five-color commander can be a Hermit Druid commander. But do be aware that the minute you play Hermit Druid, everyone is already thinking about what gravehate to add next time, and wondering why the Stax player didn't draw Leyline of the Void or Scavenging Ooze.
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