{"ops":[{"insert":"This deck should be understood in a very specific way: it is not primarily a Hydra or +1/+1 counter deck. It is a Simic X-spells engine-control deck that uses the counters on Zimone as a second form of mana. Huge creatures are one of the ways the deck wins, but they are not the real engine.\nThe main strength of the deck is the way Zimone, Infinite Analyst scales throughout the game. The first spell you cast with X in its mana cost during each turn costs one generic mana less for each +1/+1 counter on Zimone. Whenever you cast a spell with X in its mana cost, Zimone also gets two additional +1/+1 counters.\nThis means every X-spell makes the following X-spells cheaper. The deck becomes progressively more mana-efficient as the game continues.\nOne of the most important things to understand is that Zimone works on every turn, not only your own turn. In a four-player Commander game you can potentially receive Zimone's cost reduction once during your own turn and once during each opponent's turn.\nThis is why the deck contains so many instant-speed X-spells, especially counterspells, card draw and protection spells.\nCards such as Clash of Wills, Condescend, Power Sink, Spell Burst, Syncopate, Spectral Denial, Repulsive Mutation, Pull from Tomorrow, Blue Sun's Zenith, Thassa's Intervention, Silkguard and Tyvar's Stand allow you to develop Zimone while interacting with the table.\nThis is one of the deck's greatest advantages. Your defensive spells also improve your board and make future spells cheaper.\nThe +1/+1 counter package makes the engine much stronger.\nHardened Scales increases the number of counters placed on your creatures.\nThe Ozolith, the Shattered Spire does something similar while also providing another way to increase counters.\nKami of Whispered Hopes increases the number of counters placed on your permanents and later becomes an increasingly powerful mana creature.\nBenevolent Hydra increases the number of counters placed on your other creatures.\nZimone, Paradox Sculptor can dramatically increase the number of counters on permanents you already control.\nBecause of these cards, Zimone can grow much faster than the basic rate of two counters per X-spell.\nYou should therefore think of the counters on Zimone not simply as power and toughness, but as stored mana.\nIf Zimone has eight +1/+1 counters, the first X-spell you cast during a turn effectively receives an eight-mana discount.\nFor example, if you cast Hydroid Krasis with X equal to eight, the normal cost is eight generic mana plus green and blue. With eight counters on Zimone, you pay only green and blue.\nThis interaction becomes even more powerful with cards containing X more than once in their mana cost.\nDoppelgang is one of the most explosive cards in the deck.\nIf X equals three, its mana cost includes three separate X values, meaning nine generic mana plus green and blue. If Zimone already has eight counters, eight of those nine generic mana are removed from the total cost.\nYou can therefore generate an enormous number of copied permanents for very little actual mana.\nUnbound Flourishing is one of the strongest cards in the entire deck.\nWith permanent spells that have X in their mana cost, it doubles the value of X.\nWith instant and sorcery spells, it copies the spell instead.\nThis makes cards such as Walking Ballista, Primordial Hydra, Goldvein Hydra, The Goose Mother, Hydroid Krasis, Voracious Hydra, Stonecoil Serpent and Sporocyst dramatically stronger.\nWalking Ballista is particularly dangerous.\nSuppose you choose X equal to five. Normally Walking Ballista costs ten generic mana because its mana cost is XX.\nIf Zimone has eight counters, the cost can be reduced to only two mana.\nThen Unbound Flourishing doubles X from five to ten.\nWalking Ballista therefore enters with ten counters before considering additional counter effects from Hardened Scales, The Ozolith, Kami of Whispered Hopes or similar cards.\nThose counters can then be converted directly into damage.\nUnbound Flourishing behaves differently with instant and sorcery spells.\nInstead of doubling X, it copies them.\nThis is particularly powerful with cards such as Expansion Algorithm, Pull from Tomorrow, Blue Sun's Zenith, Pest Infestation, Curse of the Swine and Mathemagics.\nOwlin Spiralmancer makes this even stronger because it copies the first X-spell you cast each turn.\nIf you control both Owlin Spiralmancer and Unbound Flourishing, the first instant or sorcery X-spell you cast during a turn can effectively resolve three times: the original spell, the copy from Unbound Flourishing and the copy from Owlin Spiralmancer.\nExpansion Algorithm is one of the most dangerous scaling cards in the deck.\nIt proliferates X times.\nSuppose Zimone has eight counters and you cast Expansion Algorithm with X equal to eight.\nNormally the spell would cost eight generic mana plus two blue mana.\nZimone can remove the eight generic mana from the cost, so you only pay two blue mana.\nZimone also receives another two counters from casting the X-spell.\nThen Expansion Algorithm proliferates eight times.\nThat can increase counters on Zimone, Walking Ballista, Elementalist's Palette, Astral Cornucopia, Lattice Library and all your creatures with +1/+1 counters.\nBecause proliferation happens repeatedly, cards such as Hardened Scales and The Ozolith make the effect even more explosive.\nElementalist's Palette is another important engine card.\nEvery time you cast an X-spell, it receives two charge counters.\nIt can then produce mana equal to the number of charge counters on it, provided that mana is spent on costs containing X.\nThe charge counters themselves can also be proliferated or doubled by other effects.\nIn long games, Elementalist's Palette can generate enormous amounts of mana.\nThe deck also has a very strong conventional ramp package.\nBirds of Paradise, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Talisman of Curiosity, Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Farseek, Three Visits, Rampant Growth, Open the Way and Animist's Awakening give the deck a stable foundation.\nSporocyst is especially useful because it can put multiple basic lands directly onto the battlefield while also functioning as an X-spell for Zimone.\nGoldvein Hydra is both a threat and a mana engine. When it dies, it produces Treasure tokens equal to its power, potentially financing another enormous X-spell.\nWilderness Reclamation is also extremely important because it allows you to use your lands during your own turn and then untap them during your end step.\nThis is exactly what the deck wants.\nYou can cast an important spell during your turn, untap your lands, and then keep mana available for counterspells, card draw or protection during your opponents' turns.\nAlchemist's Refuge strengthens this strategy even further because it allows you to cast nonland cards as though they had flash.\nThis means that cards normally limited to your own turn can become the first X-spell of an opponent's turn, allowing you to use Zimone's reduction again.\nThe deck's card draw is another major strength.\nBlue Sun's Zenith, Pull from Tomorrow, Finale of Revelation, Hydroid Krasis, The Goose Mother, Ingenious Prodigy, Drown in Dreams, Thassa's Intervention, Mind into Matter and Mathemagics all help prevent you from running out of resources.\nFinale of Revelation is particularly strong in long games because once X reaches ten or more, it also untaps lands, removes your maximum hand size limitation and provides additional value.\nGeometer's Arthropod is another excellent engine card because it rewards you every time you cast an X-spell.\nBecause it can trigger multiple times, it becomes particularly dangerous when you cast several X-spells during a single turn cycle.\nThe removal package is also well integrated with the main strategy.\nCurse of the Swine can exile or transform several problematic creatures at once.\nPest Infestation removes artifacts and enchantments while creating a large number of creatures.\nSteelbane Hydra provides repeatable artifact and enchantment removal.\nVoracious Hydra can remove creatures through fighting.\nMass Manipulation can take permanent control of opposing creatures and planeswalkers.\nRepulsive Mutation combines counter growth with interaction.\nThis means the deck does not need to stop developing its main plan in order to answer threats.\nSpell Burst deserves special attention because it can become one of the most oppressive cards in the deck.\nSpell Burst counters a spell with mana value X and has buyback.\nThe buyback cost is added to the total mana cost before Zimone's reduction is applied.\nSuppose Zimone has ten counters and an opponent casts a spell with mana value six.\nYou cast Spell Burst with X equal to six and pay the buyback cost.\nThe total generic portion of the spell is nine mana.\nZimone removes nine generic mana from the cost, leaving only the single blue mana.\nYou counter the spell, return Spell Burst to your hand because of buyback, and Zimone receives two more counters.\nOn the next opponent's turn, Zimone's first-X-spell reduction is available again.\nThis can allow you to repeatedly counter important spells for extremely low mana costs.\nThe deck also has several protection effects.\nLightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots protect Zimone from targeted removal.\nMarch of Swirling Mist can temporarily phase out important creatures.\nSilkguard and Tyvar's Stand are especially valuable because they protect your board while still counting as X-spells.\nAn important detail is that an X-spell can still have X equal to zero.\nFor example, Tyvar's Stand can be cast with X equal to zero simply to give a creature hexproof and indestructible.\nIt still counts as an X-spell, so Zimone still receives counters.\nSilkguard can also be cast with X equal to zero when the main purpose is protection rather than adding counters.\nRepulsive Mutation can similarly be cast with a very small X value while still helping trigger Zimone.\nYou should not waste protection spells merely to trigger Zimone, but knowing this option exists is tactically important.\nLightning Greaves requires particular attention because it gives shroud, not hexproof.\nA creature with shroud cannot be targeted even by you.\nTherefore, if Lightning Greaves is attached to Zimone, you cannot target Zimone with your own Tyvar's Stand, Repulsive Mutation or other targeted effects.\nSometimes the correct sequence is to move Lightning Greaves to another creature, resolve your effects on Zimone and then move the Greaves back afterward.\nLattice Library fits the deck extremely well because it rewards the first X-spell you cast each turn.\nIf it has several study counters, every first X-spell can create a very large Fractal token.\nBecause you can potentially trigger this during your own turn and during each opponent's turn, Lattice Library can generate a huge board very quickly.\nThose Fractals also synergize well with Primo, the Unbounded and Nev, the Practical Dean.\nNev is particularly useful because creatures with counters gain trample, allowing your huge creatures to actually convert their size into damage.\nThe deck has multiple independent ways to win.\nThe simplest is combat damage through enormous Hydras, Fractals, The Goose Mother, Hydroid Krasis and other large creatures.\nZimone herself can also become a serious commander-damage threat.\nBecause she accumulates counters continuously, she can easily reach more than twenty power.\nNev can give her trample, while Rogue's Passage can make her unblockable.\nThis means that an opponent focusing too much on your Hydras may suddenly lose to twenty-one commander damage from Zimone.\nWalking Ballista provides a direct-damage win condition.\nMass Manipulation can effectively win by stealing the best creatures and planeswalkers on the battlefield.\nDoppelgang can create an overwhelming board by copying several powerful permanents multiple times.\nMathemagics provides another completely different way to win.\nIt makes a player draw two to the power of X cards.\nAt X equal to three, that is eight cards.\nAt X equal to four, it is sixteen cards.\nAt X equal to five, it is thirty-two cards.\nAt X equal to six, it is sixty-four cards.\nAt X equal to seven, it is one hundred and twenty-eight cards.\nThis means Mathemagics can be used as a library-kill spell against an opponent.\nWith X equal to seven, most Commander players will not have anywhere near one hundred and twenty-eight cards remaining in their library.\nNormally such a spell would be extremely expensive because its cost contains X twice.\nWith enough counters on Zimone, however, most or all of the generic portion can be removed.\nWith Unbound Flourishing the spell is copied.\nWith Owlin Spiralmancer, if it is your first X-spell of the turn, it can receive another copy.\nThat allows you to threaten multiple opponents.\nThe most important strategic mistake to avoid is casting all your X-spells during your own main phase.\nIf you cast three X-spells during your own turn, only the first receives Zimone's discount for that turn.\nA much stronger pattern is to cast one X-spell during your turn and then additional X-spells during your opponents' turns.\nFor example, you might cast a Hydra during your turn, use a counterspell during the first opponent's turn, cast Pull from Tomorrow during the second opponent's turn and use another counterspell or protection spell during the third opponent's turn.\nIn a full rotation of the table, Zimone could gain eight counters instead of only two.\nWith Hardened Scales, Kami of Whispered Hopes or other counter multipliers, the difference becomes even greater.\nYour opening hand should generally contain two or three lands, access to both colors, at least one ramp spell and at least one playable X-spell.\nWith only thirty-five lands, you should not keep slow hands without acceleration.\nBirds of Paradise, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Talisman of Curiosity, Farseek, Three Visits and Rampant Growth are among your best early plays.\nThe ideal early sequence is usually to ramp during the first two turns, cast Zimone as early as reasonably possible and then immediately begin building counters with inexpensive X-spells.\nYou do not need to wait until you can cast X equal to five or six.\nEven a small X-spell early in the game helps start the engine.\nOnce Zimone has accumulated six to ten counters, the way you play the deck should change.\nAt that stage you often want to keep mana untapped rather than committing everything during your own main phase.\nA board with Zimone holding eight or more counters, several untapped lands and multiple cards in hand is extremely difficult for opponents to read.\nYour available mana may represent a counterspell, protection spell, card draw spell, removal spell, large creature or win condition.\nThat uncertainty itself becomes a strategic advantage.\nThe deck should therefore not be played as a simple ramp-into-Hydra strategy.\nThe correct philosophy is to ramp, establish Zimone, accumulate counters, play at instant speed whenever possible, convert Zimone's counters into mana discounts, generate card advantage while controlling the table and then win using whichever threat is hardest for your opponents to answer.\nThe strongest aspect of the deck is that its interaction and its engine are the same thing.\nCounterspells, protection spells and card draw spells with X do not merely defend you. They also\n"}]}