Hydro-Man, Fluid FelonHydro-Man, Fluid Felon | Art by Borja Pindado

When it comes to Hydro-Man, Fluid FelonHydro-Man, Fluid Felon, it's difficult to tell whether he's comprised of fresh water or salt water. Today, we're here to wash away any vaguery and establish that Hydro-Man's saltier than the Gaet'ale Pond in Ethiopia (from context you can guess that yes, that's the saltiest body of water in the world).

But what makes our moist friend so salty? Reading the card itself up there, there's nothing particularly salt-inducing about its mechanics. It's certainly weird; that part's not up for debate. But salty? There are many worse offenders when it comes to salty commanders out there.

What Does Hydro-Man, Fluid Felon Do?

So what does Hydro-Man, Fluid FelonHydro-Man, Fluid Felon do? For two blue pips, we get a 2/2 Elemental Villain with two abilities, the first being considerably more normal than the second.

Whenever we cast a blue spell, Hydro-Man gets +1/+1 until end of turn. We've seen variations on that line of text before on cards like Quirion DryadQuirion Dryad and more accurately, a scarcely-seen common Merfolk from Shadowmoor, Gravelgill DuoGravelgill Duo. No surprises there.

It's that second block of text that takes Hydro-Man from forgettable to unique. At the end of each of our turns, we untap Hydro-Man and he ceases to be a creature. Until it's our turn again, he's a land that taps for . And...that's it.

There are some important things to remember when it comes to Hydro-Man's ability to de- and reconstitute himself depending on whose turn it happens to be. First, while he becomes a land that taps for blue, he is not an IslandIsland. He's not a basic land. He's just particularly wet. This is important to note when we're dealing with land-based deviance from opponents - especially Blood MoonBlood Moon.

It's all about layers and dependency and timestamps, but at the end of the day, if Blood Moon's in play and Hydro-Man's a land, he's "Legendary Land - Mountain" and has the ability to tap for and the ability to tap for . He still shifts back to a creature on your turn, since that's a continuous effect not interrupted by Blood Moon.

The other important thing to remember is that EvacuationEvacuation is an instant.

So how do we build a Hydro-Man deck that's mostly budget-friendly, is firmly Bracket 2, and is one of the most miserable things to play against?

That last part isn't a goal so much as a consequence, by the way.

Watery Owl Netsuke

A while back (and by "a while" I mean nearly 20 years ago now) there was a Standard deck called "Owling Mine." It made waves (pun intended) at Pro Tour Honolulou in 2006 by using cards like Howling MineHowling Mine to fill the opponent's hand, then bounce everything they played with stuff like BoomerangBoomerang and RemandRemand.

Once their hand was overflowing, Ebony Owl NetsukeEbony Owl Netsuke would start dealing damage in chunks until casting Sudden ImpactSudden Impact was lethal. It's a great deck, and probably one of the absolute worst to play against when things are going well for the Owling Mine player.

We're taking inspiration from Owling Mine and applying it to a Hydro-Man Commander deck, in the hopes that our opponents will learn to fear the aquatic villainy of the most moist man in Manhattan.

Key Cards for Hydro-Man, Fluid FelonHydro-Man, Fluid Felon

The fact that our commander isn't a creature during opponents' turns means he can successfully dodge mass bounce spells cast at instant-speed. He even pitches in a mana to cast them, which really is just nice of him.

Like Owling Mine, we're trying to prevent our opponents from gaining momentum by repeatedly sending their permanents back to their hand, and we've got plenty of ways to do that. And it's not just creature bounce, either:

We're leaning heavily into the mass bounce spells as opposed to the targeted ones that Owling Mine used to play, since we've got three opponents trying to cast spells instead of just one.

And realistically, opponents who catch wind of what we're trying to do aren't going to be happy, so expect to be the table's villain whenever a game gets rolling - which, if we're being honest, is written right on Hydro-Man's card. If anything, this deck is Villain-themed. Maybe it's actually Bracket 1?

Anyway, we've got sorcery-speed mass-bounce too, just to really hammer home the point:

How Does Hydro-Man, Fluid FelonHydro-Man, Fluid Felon Win?

So we've got that part of the game plan sorted. How do we, you know, win? Just like our Owling Mine inspiration, we just have to establish the punishers. Unlike Owling Mine, though, we aren't locked into a pool of cards limited to the Standard environment of Ninth Edition, Ravnica: City of Guilds, and the Kamigawa Block.

Naturally, we've got the eponymous Owl, but we can surround it with a number of other annoyingly damaging artifacts:

There are a few others, but outside of the Owl, this trio is our bread-and-butter. We want to get these down as early as we can, make copies of them with things like Sculpting SteelSculpting Steel and Phyrexian MetamorphPhyrexian Metamorph, then rake in the benefits of having opponents with hands full of random whatever. That's step two of our plan. We've got ways to keep permanents in-hand and not in play, and we've got the means to turn the currency of cards in-hand into raw damage.

You may now be wondering how we don't just die through attrition, and that's valid.

It's all about buying time to let Owl and Friends do their diabolical work. We're building a wall, slick with Hydro-Man's salty, salty water, that says "Yes, I've ruined this game of Commander, but it's not worth the effort of trying to make me suffer the consequences of my actions."

Really, it's everyone else's fault for building decks that rely so much on resolving and using permanents. And we've got Thorn of AmethystThorn of Amethyst in here, but be sure to point out that no, this is not a Stax deck, because Stax as a strategy undermines the spirit of lower bracket Commander games, and we wouldn't do that.

Hydro-Man wouldn't do that.

What Hydro-Man would do, though, is provide everyone with cards. People love drawing cards.

As you might have guessed, Folio of FanciesFolio of Fancies is a critical card for ensuring games aren't hours-long slogfests. If everyone's discarding down to seven cards each turn, that just means it'll take longer for the Owl to hoot its heralding misery.

If budget weren't a concern, we'd be playing Anvil of BogardanAnvil of Bogardan in a heartbeat. (Does Hydro-Man even have a heart?)

In all reality, what we're building here is precarious at best, and any deck that tries to simultaneously flood the game with resources while trying to limit the implementation of those resources is really just trying to plug 11 leaks with ten fingers.

But if everything comes together, it's all worth it - at least it is for us. It's probably important to note that while the deck features no Game Changers and is exactly Bracket 2 in power level, it's at a 60.8 on Archidekt's Salt Scale.

For context, the median Salt Score for decks is 38. So if you sleeve this bad boy up, you know what you're doing.

Hydro-Man, Fluid FelonHydro-Man, Fluid Felon Commander Deck List

Conclusion

As I mentioned, there aren't any Game Changers in here. But what if we wanted some?

Really, Game Changers aren't going to do a whole lot for us. Sure, being able to include Cyclonic RiftCyclonic Rift would be immensely helpful, but in our deck we're using it for its intended purpose of bouncing things. It just bounces things better than the stuff we're already using to bounce things.

We'd also be playing SunderSunder, which is considered "mass land denial" and is thus relegated to higher bracket - a card especially well-suited for Hydro-Man since we can play it on our turn while he's a creature, then be up a land when he melts back into a puddle.

As mentioned before, one of our self-imposed constraints with this list is price, which is why we're not running Anvil of BogardanAnvil of Bogardan. If you've got a well-worn collection already, though, what else could we find room for?

Is there anything we're missing here? Anything you'd add?

More Spider-Man: