GolgariLegendary Creature — Zombie HydraPolukranos, Unchained
Mana value4Rank#11,237
The Commander
Polukranos enters with six +1/+1 counters on it. It escapes with twelve +1/+1 counters on it instead.
If damage would be dealt to Polukranos while it has a +1/+1 counter on it, prevent that damage and remove that many +1/+1 counters from it.
: Polukranos fights another target creature.
Escape—
, Exile six other cards from your graveyard.
Guide
Gameplan
Polukranos is a recursive beater and removal engine: a 6/6 for four that fights creatures repeatedly while shrugging off combat and burn by shedding counters instead of dying. You grind value by feeding the graveyard, fighting down the board, and escaping Polukranos as a 12/12 when he eventually dies. Refuel his counters with +1/+1 synergies and proliferate, then close with oversized trample swings or counter-fueled combos.
Strengths
- Repeatable fight is built-in removal that clears creatures and triggers fight/counter payoffs.
- Damage prevention via counter removal makes him extremely hard to kill in combat or with burn.
- Escape gives strong recursion, returning as a 12/12 that dodges most removal short of exile/sacrifice.
- Mono-bodied threat in colors loaded with ramp, recursion, and self-mill enablers.
Weaknesses
- Self-fight can backfire: losing counters strips his damage prevention and can shrink him to nothing.
- Vulnerable to exile, -X/-X, edicts, and sacrifice effects that ignore counters.
- Escape competes hard for graveyard fuel needed by the rest of the deck.
- No evasion or protection on his own—gets chump-blocked or removed before connecting.
Key Cards
- Hardened Scales — Multiplies every +1/+1 counter he gets, keeping him huge and damage-proof longer.
- Doubling Season — Doubles his entering counters and any added, turning fights and proliferate into overkill.
- Cauldron of Souls — Reloads counters and gives a soft-recur safety net so he keeps shrugging off damage.
- The Ozolith — Banks his counters when he dies so a recast or escape comes back loaded.
- Skullclamp — Premier card draw that turns dying tokens and shrunken creatures into a refuel engine.
- Altar of Dementia — Mills you to fuel escape and can be a sacrifice outlet/combo finisher.
Upgrade Path
Lean into counter doublers (Hardened Scales, Branching Evolution, Doubling Season) and proliferate to keep him oversized and unkillable, then add trample/evasion like Rancor or Loxodon Warhammer so fights translate to lethal swings. Tighten the mana with fast ramp (Sol Ring, Three Visits, Nature's Lore) and add resilient recursion (Sheoldred, Whispering One; Reanimate) plus a sacrifice outlet so losing fights and removal become value. For higher power, build toward a counters-combo finish with The Ozolith plus blink/recast loops and infinite-mana fight 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 a giant, damage-proof Polukranos plus trample/evasion enablers.
- ▸Grind the board to zero with repeated fights, then close uncontested.
- ▸Combo with counter-doublers and proliferate plus a sac/mill outlet for an explosive finish.
- ▸Recur and escape Polukranos repeatedly to outlast removal-light tables.
Archetypes
- +1/+1 Counters — His counters scale with proliferate and doublers, making him a centerpiece for a counters matters shell.
- Reanimator/Graveyard Value — Escape and self-mill push a graveyard-recursion plan that constantly refills threats.
- Big-Mana Stompy — BG ramp deploys him early and powers repeated fights and escape into a beatdown.
- Aristocrats — Sacrifice synergies dodge the downside of fight losses and exploit dying creatures for value.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (BG), by popularity.
