Ancient Hydra
Creature — Hydra
Fading 5 (This creature enters with five fade counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a fade counter from it. If you can't, sacrifice it.)
, Remove a fade counter from this creature: It deals 1 damage to any target.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Nemesis
- Price
- $0.25
- EDHREC rank
- #29506
Ancient Hydra enters as a 5/1 with five fading counters that double as single-point removal — each upkeep it shrinks, and you can sacrifice a counter at any time to deal 1 damage to any target. The activated ability is too slow and too small for the mana investment; this is a bulk rare for a reason.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Ancient Hydra is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but that list flatters it — competitive tables in any of those formats ignore it entirely. In Commander, five 1-damage activations spread across multiple turns can't keep pace with threats that matter, and a 5/1 body evaporates to any blocker. Legacy and Vintage don't want a five-mana creature doing incremental plink damage when better options exist at every point on the curve. Ancient Hydra is a nostalgia piece, not a competitive card in any format where it's legal.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.25 bulk tier
At $0.25, Ancient Hydra sits firmly in bulk territory and is unlikely to climb — demand is too low and supply too abundant for any meaningful price movement. Pick it up if you want it for a theme deck, but don't expect it to hold trade value.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.