Commander Deck Tech - Helga, Skittish Seer

Frogs, raccoons, otters! Bloomburrow brought us several cute animals to use in Magic's most beloved format. And this time we chose an adorable frog to feature in today's Deck Tech!

Wait, there's something wrong... With Helga we're using... Hydras?! That's right! In today's Deck Tech, we're featuring Helga, Skittish Seer in a Hydra deck!

Helga, Skittish Seer is in Bant colors, and interacts with creatures that cost 4 mana or more - it draws us a card, gives us 1 life and gains a +1/+1 counter. The second ability generates mana equal to its power to cast creatures with a cost of 4 or more or that have X in their cost.

So with this ability in mind, why not try it in a kindred Hydra deck?

Although hydras are mostly in green, we have some in blue and white colors as well. In this build we'll use blue and white as support and defense, as hydras are known for having many +1/+1 counters. The card draws provided by Helga along with her increasing mana generation show great potential!

And if you're not a fan of hydras, at the end of the article we'll have an alternative list aimed at +1/+1 counters and versatile creatures costing 4 or more.

In this build, our main win condition is by combat damage. After all, hydras are known in Magic for being creatures with potential to be gigantic, so let's live up to their fame. We have several answers and protections to help us with our game strategy, along with a special win condition that doesn't require combat damage!

Ramp

Sol Ring and Arcane Signet couldn't be left out - they're the format's favorite mana rocks! We also have the most used ramps in the format.

In the 2-cost, we use Farseek, Nature's Lore, Three Visits and Rampant Growth. At 3-cost, the twins Kodama's Reach and Cultivate ramp up and guarantee our land drop for the turn. Finally, a mana dork in Fanatic of Rhonas - one of the best in recent sets. It can generate 4 mana if we control a creature with power 4 or greater, and this is quite common in our deck. Not to mention its Eternalize ability, where it generates 4 mana by itself since it becomes a 4/4 black zombie token.

Hydras, hydras and more hydras!

And of course, there are hydras in a kindred hydra deck!

Mainly Gargos, Vicious Watcher, one of the most well-known Hydra Commanders. Gargos has a potential incredible removal suite with his ability, in addition to reducing the cost of hydras by 4 - that means, every hydra will enter with at least 4 extra +1/+1 counters. For example, with Gargos on the field, a Lifeblood Hydra would go 4/4 just by paying its cost, and would still trigger Helga.

The Goose Mother, Hydroid Krasis and Polukranos Reborn are our aforementioned hydras that go beyond green. The Goose Mother brings life gain and card draw through food token creation, and the flying/evasion makes it a nice potential threat.

Hydroid Krasis draws cards and gains life. This guarantees resources to keep the deck going, and sustain with life gain, so we can outlast others in a long game.

Polukranos Reborn may look harmless on the front face, but when transformed, suddenly it's very different.

Polukranos, Engine of Ruin has Reach and Lifelink, and creates hydra tokens with Reach and hydra tokens with Lifelink every time a non-token hydra dies (including itself as well). This gives us some insurance when losing our creatures, especially when we consider global removal (which can be cast by ourselves, if necessary!), since all opponents would be left without creatures and we would be left with several hydra tokens!

Some of our hydras don't have X in their cost, but they make up for it with utility. Whiptongue Hydra, for example, answers all opponents' flying creatures, and gains +1/+1 counters for each creature with flying destroyed this way. It can work well against angel or demon decks, for example.

Managorger Hydra may start small and not even trigger Helga, but the longer it stays on the field, the stronger it becomes. Having innate Trample makes it even stronger.

Thunderous Snapper triggers Helga's ability, and also draws cards when we cast a creature with cost 5 or more - which is very easy to do in our deck. Also among the hydras with no X cost, Kalonian Hydra. This classic creature already has Trample, and doubles the counters on all our creatures when it attacks. By itself, it's already an 8/8, and can get much bigger with effects that we will show soon, and because all of our creatures grow, it guarantees very aggressive turns!

Now back to hydras with X cost, we picked other good creatures in this kindred build. Benevolent Hydra puts additional counters on our creatures, and can transfer its counters to other creatures.

Goldvein Hydra recently released in Outlaws of Thunder Junction and already shows capacity to do great damage, primarily due to its keywords: Vigilance, Haste and Trample. Furthermore, upon death, it creates treasure tokens equal to its power - in other words, we don't mind losing it in a risky attack or block.

Polukranos works very well with Hooded Hydra in creating tokens, by making 1/1 snake tokens on death and giving us several blockers and nicely replenishing the good board.

Voracious Hydra serves as removal or as a really big creature by doubling its +1/+1 counters when ETB, and having trample makes it even more of a threat. Primordial Hydra is just as threatening, since it grows with each passing turn, while also having trample.

Nyxborn Hydra recently came out in Modern Horizons 3, and is a common card with a lot of potential. It has Reach, Trample and Bestow - you can enchant a creature and when it dies, the enchantment becomes a creature. It's a great answer to removals. Vastwood Hydra has a similar effect upon death, by distributing all of its +1/+1 counters to our creatures.

Hydras are known in mythology for losing a head but growing two to replace it. Hungering Hydra and Protean Hydra resonate this both in their design and mechanically.

Finally, in this creature selection, we have three more hydras: Neverwinter Hydra, with the potential to be quite large depending on the die rolls, in addition to having Ward 4 and Trample. Mistcutter Hydra helps us to be aggressive thanks to Haste, and Genesis Hydra, which brings with it some non-land permanent from the top X of our deck, with a cost equal to the X of its casting.

Synergies with +1/+1 Counters and X Cost

Since basically all hydras and the Commander itself function with +1/+1 counters, we added several interactions in order to enhance our creatures.

Starting with the "doublers", we have Innkeeper's Talent's Level 3, Unbound Flourishing and Branching Evolution. All three are great in our build, but Innkeeper's Talent takes the spotlight by also protecting our creatures with the Ward 1 on Level 2. Fangs of Kalonia also doubles the +1/+1 counters of all our creatures when cast with Overload.

Helga provides good sustain with her life-gaining ability, but we can improve on that. Abzan Battle Priest gives lifelink to all creatures with +1/+1 counters, which means almost all of our hydras and Helga. Herald of Secret Streams delivers perfect evasion by making our hydras unblockable, which sometimes can just means lethal damage on one opponent, or even more, if our creatures are big enough.

We need to protect our creatures, so we selected some cards that are pitch perfect for this goal.

Mutational Advantage provides Hexproof, Indestructible and prevents all damage dealt to creatures with counters, and even proliferates. That's a lot for just 3 mana! And at the 3-Cost we also have Inspiring Call, which draws cards and makes our creatures indestructible.

Damning Verdict can be a path to victory by destroying all creatures without counters. If no opponent has creatures with counters, it basically clears the way for our giant hydras .

Also on the aggressive agenda, let's not forget Surrak and Goreclaw.

Although they are not hydras, they grant Haste and thus allow us to quickly deal damage. It grants evasion with Trample, and by costing 6 mana it even triggers our Commander!

Drawing cards

Helga brings great card draw, but it can't be our only source of card draw for the whole game. With this in mind, we added Beast Whisperer, which has a similar effect of drawing cards when casting creatures. To trigger draws on ETB, we have Elemental Bond and Garruk's Uprising, with also grants Trample to our creatures.

The Great Henge also guarantees us card draw when our non-token creatures enter, and also grows them, gives us life and act as a mana rock.

Both Return of the Wildspeaker and Rishkar's Expertise can draw us a huge amount of cards depending on how big our hydras are, so be careful about Deck Over!

Finally, we have Rhystic Study, as it provides a good amount of cards draw in a long game.

Removals and Miscellaneous

Despite being almost a monocolor green, having access to blue and white provides the necessary support to our aggressiveness. We only have a few counterspells to actually stop problematic spells.

Dovin's Veto, Arcane Denial and An Offer You Can't Refuse were the chosen ones for this role to help us in an emergency.

As for single-target removals, we have access to good options: Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares will exile creatures, and Beast Within and Generous Gift will destroy any type of permanent that can be a threat.

As defensive cards, in addition to the ones already mentioned, we have Heroic Intervention and Teferi's Protection. They are two great protections, especially Teferi's Protection since it also guards our life points.

On global removals, we use Austere Command for its versatility, and Cyclonic Rift. Although it is not a "removal", it can be both a great defensive resource against a very aggressive attack or a troublesome boardstate, as well as an offensive resource that takes all blockers out of the way so we can run over our opponents.

Speaking of running over opponents, Overwhelming Stampede is part of our build and guarantees lethal damage. Even though hydras already having great power and toughness, Overwhelming Stampede makes that 9 or 10 damage become 18 or 20 with Trample!

Finally, in order to be aggressive but still protect Helga or an important hydra, we have the Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves that guarantee Haste and Hexproof or Shroud.

This is another version of Helga, totally different from what we presented in this Deck Tech. In this alternative list we focus more on Helga's ability and utility creatures with mana cost 4 or more.

Not everyone enjoys Kindred decks, so I hope that audience finds this a more interesting Helga list.

Helga proved to be very versatile, with infinite deckbuild possibilities. I never particularly stopped to see how strong this Kindred of hydras is nowadays, and Helga makes it a good list with large, aggressive creatures while also providing good card draw, keeping us competitive in a game!

Did you like our first decklist? Or do you prefer the one without hydras? Did you miss any specific cards? Let us know in the comments!