The Commander
Deathtouch
: Monstrosity 3. (If this creature isn't monstrous, put three +1/+1 counters on it and it becomes monstrous.)
When Hythonia becomes monstrous, destroy all non-Gorgon creatures.
Guide
Gameplan
Hythonia is a mono-black control/wrath commander: stall the board with deathtouch and removal until you can pay her hefty monstrosity cost to wipe every non-Gorgon creature, leaving your 7/7 deathtoucher standing. From there grind out the table with recursion, card advantage, and incremental beatdown or a finisher.
Strengths
- Repeatable, asymmetric board wipe stapled to your commander
- Deathtouch makes her a brutal blocker and attacker that trades with anything
- Mono-black gives access to the best tutors, removal, and recursion
- One-sided wrath leaves her as a clock the turn she goes monstrous
Weaknesses
- Monstrosity costs a backbreaking 8 mana, making the wipe slow
- Doesn't kill noncreature threats, planeswalkers, or enchantments
- Single color means no counterspells and weak interaction with the air/artifacts
- Removal-heavy decks blow her up before you ever pay the cost
Key Cards
- Cabal Coffers — With Urborg it produces the mountains of mana needed to monstrify and recast Hythonia repeatedly.
- Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx — Explosive black devotion ramp that lets you reach the 8-mana monstrosity cost ahead of schedule.
- Whispersilk Cloak — Makes Hythonia unblockable and shroud, protecting her and turning her into a reliable evasive threat after the wipe.
- Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth — Turns all lands into Swamps, supercharging Cabal Coffers and your mana base.
- Crypt Ghast — Doubles Swamp mana to accelerate toward the monstrosity activation.
- Reanimate — Cheaply returns Hythonia or big finishers, sidestepping her clunky cost.
Upgrade Path
Lean into mono-black ramp—Cabal Coffers, Nykthos, Crypt Ghast, Magus of the Coffers, and Nyxbloom Ancient—so the 8-mana monstrosity is castable and repeatable. Add cost reducers and reanimation (Reanimate, Animate Dead) plus protection like Whispersilk Cloak and Lightning Greaves to keep her alive, and finish with X-spell drains such as Torment of Hailfire and Exsanguinate. Tutors like Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor smooth out the build and find your payoffs.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Beat down with monstrous Hythonia (7/7 deathtouch, often evasive) after the wipe
- ▸Torment of Hailfire or Exsanguinate as a mana-sink X-spell finisher
- ▸Grind opponents out of resources with repeated wraths and recursion
- ▸Reanimated bombs closing the game once the board is clear
Archetypes
- Control — Her repeatable wrath plus mono-black removal lets you dismantle the board and grind to victory.
- Stax — Resource denial and a recurring one-sided sweeper keep opponents locked out of meaningful boards.
- Devotion Ramp — Heavy black pips fuel Nykthos and Coffers to power out the expensive monstrosity ability.
- Reanimator — Black's reanimation suite cheats Hythonia and other fatties into play to dodge her mana cost.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (B), by popularity.
