"Lifeblood Hydra: Pharika's Gift"

"Lifeblood Hydra: Pharika's Gift"

by:

Virgilio F.De leon Jr.

There are creatures in magic that serve specific purposes. You have your attack creatures and you have your support creatures. Creatures that are very good at what they do , like killing other creatures or killing planeswalkers can often be found in the rare slots and the great majority of support creatures could be found in the uncommon and common slots.

Seldomly do you find creatures that could be good in offense but great in support as well. In Commander 2014 Lifeblood Hydra is one such creature. 

This creature appears in the Mono Green EDH themed deck of Commander 2014. Its mana cost of 3 green mana and X requires a huge green mana commitment,however since you have access to green mana it also means that you could pump a lot of mana into that glaring X cost.

Recently I have been trying to upgrade my Simic Hydra deck and I would be glad to add Lifeblood Hydra into this Hydra brotherhood. Hail Hydra! Since you could put in a lot of mana into that X cost, let us say you put in 7 mana so that you now have a 7/7 Hydra with Trample on the battlefield. He could kick ass as an attacker but there is another reason why this Hydra would be much coveted in the EDH format,Pharika made sure that only the worthy could discover its secrets.And they are very great secrets indeed.

When this Hydra dies you draw cards and gain life equal to the +1/+1 counters that were on it. So we had a 7/7 , we draw 7 cards and gain 7 life. In this current Hydra EDH deck that I have Vorel of the Hull Clade just loves doubling counters and Kalonian Hydra just loves doubling these counters as well. 

Imagine the Lifeblood Hydra attacking and it becomes blocked ,Vorel Instantly makes it bigger. Several things could happen , it lives and kills a blocking creature ,trampling to damage anyway ,it deals 14 damage as it goes unblocked or it dies due to Instant speed removal spells or due to creatures with deathtouch and first strike like Glissa The Traitor.When you look at these instances , it seems that you just lost a big threat on the board , however the advantages are all in your favor. Life gain and card draw. If you are behind in life then you gain the much needed life points to survive further attacks , if you are ahead in life , you add a comfortable cushion, a buffer in life totals that you hope your enemies could not reduce in time. Drawing a lot of cards on the other hand would just give you more options on what to do and would give you access via draw to your next board threat.

Lifeblood Hydra represents a sudden refilling of the cards in your hand as well as life points in the mid to late game and for  EDH games that last for a long time , any creature that offers these two things is absolutely fantastic.So when all of your opponents are petering out due to lack of spells in their hands the Lifeblood Hydra brings you a decided card advantage that you could abuse.

Living for you or Dying for you. The Lifeblood Hydra would always give you an edge when you need it. Pharika's gift are very hard to obtain but in this creature these gifts are well worth it.