How to Hermit Druid
Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2019 6:14 am
A few years ago, the folks at MTGthesource developed one of the most broken and resilient doomsday machines in the format: 5 color Hermit Druid. A friend of mine actually sleeved the deck up for a while, and spent a year or two terrorizing GP side events with it... it remains to date the most consistent and highest win percent deck I've ever seen. For better or worse, it's gotten less attention in the last couple years, as Hulk/Flash, Scepter combos, and various 4-color builds have taken the limelight. It's still worth understanding though, especially since other relevant combos can slot into it.
THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE
(why don't my cards line up! raaaarrghh)
Here's how the machine's engine works*: Get Hermit Druid in play, and activate him. Put your entire library into your graveyard. Put a couple cheap-from-the-graveyard creatures into play. Use your cheap creatures to flashback Dread Return, bringing back Angel of Glory's Rise. Bing back an assortment of humans, which needs to include Laboratory Maniac, and a human that draws a card (Azami, Lady of Scrolls or Hapless Researcher). Draw your card, triggering Lab Man. Congratulations, victory is yours!
*Note: contains no actual Doomsday. Unless you wanna (see Plan Bs, next post)
THE GEARS IN THE MACHINE
While there are a plenty of different ways to put an exact list together, here are the essentials:
Lands (33)
This will vary based on your exact list, but they must all be non-basic (or Hermit Druid won't work). This is a speedy combo (and a color intensive one at that) so all of your lands need to enter untapped, and tap for colored mana. The only utility land that should be considered is Bazaar of Baghdad. Additionally, while the original list was 5-color, red is not a critical if you'd prefer to play 4-color instead.
Core combo cards (4-5): Hermit Druid, Dread Return, Angel of Glory's Rise, Azami, Lady of Scrolls, and/or Hapless Researcher
Tutors (12-15): There's a list of A-list tutors out there (hopefully someone will put together a list for this forum), but I'm not gonna go through all of them here... I'm just gonna hit a handful that I think are especially useful. You'll probably end up with a dozen or more cards that find other cards.
Survival of the Fittest: Besides being a useful tutor, it's also a critical discard outlet. You don't want to get Angel, Azami, or Lab Man stuck in your hand when you're ready to combo off.
Entomb: Sometimes it's easiest to put Hermit Druid into play from your graveyard
Intuition: Like Entomb, but slower and stronger
Muddle the Mixture: Mediocre tutor, ok counterspell, necessary blue card to pitch to Force of Will
Eldritch Evolution: Puts Hermit Druid into play off a dork, or Lab Man into play off of Hermit Druid
Neoform: See above. These cards are handy if you suspect someone might try to counter your Dread Return; if they get countered, you're inconvenienced, not dead. They also work around Gaddock Teeg.
Recursion (6ish): These are the cards I recommend. You have some flexibility here... depending on which tutors you play you might trim one or two. If you look at older lists, you might see Shallow Graves; I don't recommend it because it's limited to the top card of your library, which is easy to mess up. And 3 mana is a lot for this list, so I would stay away from Necromancy and others.
Reanimate
Animate Dead
Unearth
Postmortem Lunge
Life // Death
Revival // Revenge
Support Dorks (12): Die nerds! These guys are mostly here for Dread Return, but a few of them provide extra fizz for your sinister brew.
Narcomoeba: Free off Hermit Druid activation!
Fatestitcher: ...mostly free off Hermit Druid activation...
Snapcaster Mage: besides usual Snapcaster tricks, also counts as a Human for Angel, and Wizard (if you run Azami)
Deathrite Shaman: A mana dork that occasionally craps on an opposing graveyard combo
Sylvan Safekeeper: a combo protecting human wizard. Semi-optional, but a solid T1 play. Being green makes it easier to tutor for if you feel the need (ie, Green Sun's Zenith)
Grand Abolisher: combo protector, human. Mostly an upgrade over Sylvan Safekeeper.
Birds of Paradise: This and the rest of the mana dorks speed you up a turn, and again provide fodder for Dread Return
Noble Heirarch
Avacyn's Pilgrim
Elves of the Deep Shadow
Llanowar Elves
Fyndhorn Elves
Support Spells (5): As with the tutors, I'm not gonna run through every A-list, Eternal staple that should probably go in a cEDH list. But these particular cards are essential for however you build this deck.
Pull from Eternity: Combos with Memory's Journey
Memory's Journey: Combos with Pull from Eternity
Gitaxian Probe: Free draw to trigger Lab Man, flashback-able off Snapcaster Mage
Tainted Pact: If for some reason you can't activate Hermit Druid (maybe you're trapped under Cursed Totem), Tainted Pact can clear your library for you if you name a card that's not in your deck.
MUAHAHAHA YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE LAST OF ME
So the biggest piece of tech that Kuma and the crew at the Source discovered is the interaction between Pull From Eternity and Memory's Journey. If something goes wrong, and an opponent drops a graveyard exiling effect on you at a poor time, these two cards can save you. You can flashback Memory's Journey to shuffle Pull and two other relevant cards back into your Library, and if you still can't win, use Pull to bring back Memory's Journey and keep trying. You can also build your own pseudo-Doomsday piles with Lab Man and appropriate cantrips, as needed.
These two cards give you an extraordinary amount of resilience, and unless someone can trap you under a Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void, you're never really out of the game. Players who are inexperienced in cEDH consistently overestimate their ability to deploy enough graveyard hate, and these cards will punish them for it.
THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE
(why don't my cards line up! raaaarrghh)
Here's how the machine's engine works*: Get Hermit Druid in play, and activate him. Put your entire library into your graveyard. Put a couple cheap-from-the-graveyard creatures into play. Use your cheap creatures to flashback Dread Return, bringing back Angel of Glory's Rise. Bing back an assortment of humans, which needs to include Laboratory Maniac, and a human that draws a card (Azami, Lady of Scrolls or Hapless Researcher). Draw your card, triggering Lab Man. Congratulations, victory is yours!
*Note: contains no actual Doomsday. Unless you wanna (see Plan Bs, next post)
THE GEARS IN THE MACHINE
While there are a plenty of different ways to put an exact list together, here are the essentials:
Lands (33)
This will vary based on your exact list, but they must all be non-basic (or Hermit Druid won't work). This is a speedy combo (and a color intensive one at that) so all of your lands need to enter untapped, and tap for colored mana. The only utility land that should be considered is Bazaar of Baghdad. Additionally, while the original list was 5-color, red is not a critical if you'd prefer to play 4-color instead.
Core combo cards (4-5): Hermit Druid, Dread Return, Angel of Glory's Rise, Azami, Lady of Scrolls, and/or Hapless Researcher
Tutors (12-15): There's a list of A-list tutors out there (hopefully someone will put together a list for this forum), but I'm not gonna go through all of them here... I'm just gonna hit a handful that I think are especially useful. You'll probably end up with a dozen or more cards that find other cards.
Survival of the Fittest: Besides being a useful tutor, it's also a critical discard outlet. You don't want to get Angel, Azami, or Lab Man stuck in your hand when you're ready to combo off.
Entomb: Sometimes it's easiest to put Hermit Druid into play from your graveyard
Intuition: Like Entomb, but slower and stronger
Muddle the Mixture: Mediocre tutor, ok counterspell, necessary blue card to pitch to Force of Will
Eldritch Evolution: Puts Hermit Druid into play off a dork, or Lab Man into play off of Hermit Druid
Neoform: See above. These cards are handy if you suspect someone might try to counter your Dread Return; if they get countered, you're inconvenienced, not dead. They also work around Gaddock Teeg.
Recursion (6ish): These are the cards I recommend. You have some flexibility here... depending on which tutors you play you might trim one or two. If you look at older lists, you might see Shallow Graves; I don't recommend it because it's limited to the top card of your library, which is easy to mess up. And 3 mana is a lot for this list, so I would stay away from Necromancy and others.
Reanimate
Animate Dead
Unearth
Postmortem Lunge
Life // Death
Revival // Revenge
Support Dorks (12): Die nerds! These guys are mostly here for Dread Return, but a few of them provide extra fizz for your sinister brew.
Narcomoeba: Free off Hermit Druid activation!
Fatestitcher: ...mostly free off Hermit Druid activation...
Snapcaster Mage: besides usual Snapcaster tricks, also counts as a Human for Angel, and Wizard (if you run Azami)
Deathrite Shaman: A mana dork that occasionally craps on an opposing graveyard combo
Sylvan Safekeeper: a combo protecting human wizard. Semi-optional, but a solid T1 play. Being green makes it easier to tutor for if you feel the need (ie, Green Sun's Zenith)
Grand Abolisher: combo protector, human. Mostly an upgrade over Sylvan Safekeeper.
Birds of Paradise: This and the rest of the mana dorks speed you up a turn, and again provide fodder for Dread Return
Noble Heirarch
Avacyn's Pilgrim
Elves of the Deep Shadow
Llanowar Elves
Fyndhorn Elves
Support Spells (5): As with the tutors, I'm not gonna run through every A-list, Eternal staple that should probably go in a cEDH list. But these particular cards are essential for however you build this deck.
Pull from Eternity: Combos with Memory's Journey
Memory's Journey: Combos with Pull from Eternity
Gitaxian Probe: Free draw to trigger Lab Man, flashback-able off Snapcaster Mage
Tainted Pact: If for some reason you can't activate Hermit Druid (maybe you're trapped under Cursed Totem), Tainted Pact can clear your library for you if you name a card that's not in your deck.
MUAHAHAHA YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE LAST OF ME
So the biggest piece of tech that Kuma and the crew at the Source discovered is the interaction between Pull From Eternity and Memory's Journey. If something goes wrong, and an opponent drops a graveyard exiling effect on you at a poor time, these two cards can save you. You can flashback Memory's Journey to shuffle Pull and two other relevant cards back into your Library, and if you still can't win, use Pull to bring back Memory's Journey and keep trying. You can also build your own pseudo-Doomsday piles with Lab Man and appropriate cantrips, as needed.
These two cards give you an extraordinary amount of resilience, and unless someone can trap you under a Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void, you're never really out of the game. Players who are inexperienced in cEDH consistently overestimate their ability to deploy enough graveyard hate, and these cards will punish them for it.