Love the hydra, my commander for hydra tribal EDH is Xenagos and what red brings to be table in big mana is very useful, still a hydra will be getting kicked out for this guy for sure.
Used to have her in Mazirek, kraul death priest but she just draws far too much hate, in a 4-5 player pod I can't remember her ever lasting until my next turn, usually she was simply straight countered/removed. In which case there are simply better forced sac options.
I have it in my sac heavy Mazirek, kraul death priest deck. It's a bit slow I suppose and obviously relies on your yard already having a few creatures in, still I find it works well enough for me more often than not.
And lots of people are predictably, and somewhat justifiably, very annoyed by this because there's no good reason to name it Fountain of Ichor if they didn't want to invoke speculation - the word doesn't even have anything to do with oil outside of MTG's use of it as an alias for Glistening Oil. If you draw your definition from English in general, it's a badly chosen nonsense name. If you draw your definition from the context of MTG, it's yet another obnoxious red-herring meant to stir speculation, which I would have thought they would learn to do better or not do at all by now.
How could they call it to avoid the issue? Fountain of Oil would be even worse...
Could have just not referencing a card with oil in this way? Or maybe on another plane, or made the flavor text clear this was the being of industry etc. Also it animating an artifact dinosaur is a huge phyrexian link, it could have something different. Then every card with Ichor in bar Ichorid relates to Phyrexians/the glistening oil. Could have used black gold, crude, petroleum wellspring etc. I feel the name, ability and flavor text must have been apparent it hinted at phyrexians, if they didn't want that speculation they had alternatives, and even if they have no intention of doing a phyrexia on Ixalan, why shut the speculation down and not just let people stay intrigued.
Still, shut down now, no dino engines...at least not compleated ones.
Cards that aren't specifically anti-dragon but anti-flier could be an idea. I brewed a wurm tribal deck a while ago which had several of these purely because my EDH pod has decks which a flier focus (angel tribal, animar deck with quite a few fliers) and with it being strictly wurm not many have reach, there's always flying bombs around.
I preffered a couple of enchantments, so there's options like...
Did a double take too on Fountain of Ichor
I'm unsure if it's just using the term as a generic one for oil/tar. As I feel they could have named it as such/differently, and the fact it appears to animate an artifact dinosaur is such a strong link. Ichor was used on a lot of phyrexian related cards, the fact it says something differently entirely seems more ominous than them simply hitting oil to me. Of course the flip side is, if it was meant to be Glistening oil, why is it they have to dig deep for it, and it not be starting to appear on the surface of the world, which is what it seems to generally do. Lets them just hint, let people speculate, then use it in future if they wish to, phyrexian dinosaurs would sell..
Fun card albeit 7cmc is quite high, you wouldn't exactly want to build your manabase on the assumption its hanging around, and if not I wonder if there aren't better options bar obscure tribes. I'd consider it for insects I guess, though I don't mind using a non-insect at the helm and so there are better options.
Just a quick one, if a creature with a deathtouch also has double strike, does it damage the player/walker twice (first strike damage, then regular damage?). If so I presume it would get 2 +1/+1 counters? If that is correct, does Vraska instantly add the counter to the creature, so it would have one more p/t for its regular portion of combat damage, or does it wait until after the first strike and regular damage steps are done? I assume it has to wait, but I was unsure if there's any room between first strike and "normal" combat that triggers like hers could resolve?
I think there's often cards you strongly consider but decide not to go with...but then might try subbing in depending on the meta..then you decide to sub it out again etc...agony.
But generally I'd say yes for my Doran EDH, I know what I want it to do, I don't look to rework the deck in any way after multiple adjustments, now I'm only looking towards new sets offering anything strictly better (new Oketra is getting a spot)
My solution at the time against a three colour deck was to kill it then Demolish one of his only two sources of that colour..thankfully he didn't draw another red source hehe.
My initial reluctance to use wheel effects was essentially that if I'm having trouble casting the current hand of 6-drops, then a new hand of 6-drops won't be better. This should probably have been my first clue that I should do something about that, but I make no claims to being any good at this!
I think since red lacks the draw think of using them more when you're hand is empty or almost there, as a draw 7 type thing.
Another red tribal card which comes to mind
Mana echoes, I'd say it might be overcosted usually but for you I think it'll work quite well. If you have your commander out alone say, then play a dragon, you get 2 mana, then your commander makes a dragon token enter play, so you get an addition 3 mana, so now you've just gotten 5 colorless mana to spend on another card, your dragons could actually give you more mana back than they cost in this situation. (The card counts the creature entering the battlefield as well, so even if you have no dragons in play and cast one, you still get 1 mana back.)
Could have just not referencing a card with oil in this way? Or maybe on another plane, or made the flavor text clear this was the being of industry etc. Also it animating an artifact dinosaur is a huge phyrexian link, it could have something different. Then every card with Ichor in bar Ichorid relates to Phyrexians/the glistening oil. Could have used black gold, crude, petroleum wellspring etc. I feel the name, ability and flavor text must have been apparent it hinted at phyrexians, if they didn't want that speculation they had alternatives, and even if they have no intention of doing a phyrexia on Ixalan, why shut the speculation down and not just let people stay intrigued.
Still, shut down now, no dino engines...at least not compleated ones.
I preffered a couple of enchantments, so there's options like...
Downdraft
Gravity sphere
Gravity well
Katabatic winds
chaosphere
dense canopy
storm front
Raking canopy
I'm unsure if it's just using the term as a generic one for oil/tar. As I feel they could have named it as such/differently, and the fact it appears to animate an artifact dinosaur is such a strong link. Ichor was used on a lot of phyrexian related cards, the fact it says something differently entirely seems more ominous than them simply hitting oil to me. Of course the flip side is, if it was meant to be Glistening oil, why is it they have to dig deep for it, and it not be starting to appear on the surface of the world, which is what it seems to generally do. Lets them just hint, let people speculate, then use it in future if they wish to, phyrexian dinosaurs would sell..
...apart from that though a nice inclusion for Ishkanah.
As with any tribal theme where the individual creatures are pretty weak in of themselves, I'd suggest a few more ways to strengthen them..
Adaptive Automaton AKA robo-pirate (you have Metallic Mimic in your maybe already)
Door of destinies
Konda's Banner A fine flag for the captain
Shared Animosity
Heirloom blade always good to draw more pirates
Just a quick one, if a creature with a deathtouch also has double strike, does it damage the player/walker twice (first strike damage, then regular damage?). If so I presume it would get 2 +1/+1 counters? If that is correct, does Vraska instantly add the counter to the creature, so it would have one more p/t for its regular portion of combat damage, or does it wait until after the first strike and regular damage steps are done? I assume it has to wait, but I was unsure if there's any room between first strike and "normal" combat that triggers like hers could resolve?
But generally I'd say yes for my Doran EDH, I know what I want it to do, I don't look to rework the deck in any way after multiple adjustments, now I'm only looking towards new sets offering anything strictly better (new Oketra is getting a spot)
My solution at the time against a three colour deck was to kill it then Demolish one of his only two sources of that colour..thankfully he didn't draw another red source hehe.
I think since red lacks the draw think of using them more when you're hand is empty or almost there, as a draw 7 type thing.
Another red tribal card which comes to mind
Mana echoes, I'd say it might be overcosted usually but for you I think it'll work quite well. If you have your commander out alone say, then play a dragon, you get 2 mana, then your commander makes a dragon token enter play, so you get an addition 3 mana, so now you've just gotten 5 colorless mana to spend on another card, your dragons could actually give you more mana back than they cost in this situation. (The card counts the creature entering the battlefield as well, so even if you have no dragons in play and cast one, you still get 1 mana back.)