Best Hydra team currently?
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@Drathas was it you who had an interesting Hydra team in the past? I might have mixed you with someone else tho.
Personally, I find Hydra a little too fussy to be very fun or reliable. It’s spell damage scales based on the amount of damage it has taken, so you need to simultaneously put it in a position to take damage (but not too much damage) and get constantly or consistently healed. For me, too many things can go wrong, leading to it either dying prematurely or not taking enough damage to be a useful damage-dealer.
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We’ve had a couple threads on this, and it keeps coming down to the best Hydra team is to not play Hydra. 
Here’s the one thread: Fun Teams [List] - #5 by Esoxnepa
Many of the Hydra Teams come down to the trait not going enough damage to be worth using it as part of the theme.
At this point, I’d probably look at something like:
Gorgotha
Hydra
Dark Priestess
Soothsayer? (Something empowered to help get the team rolling.)
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I haven’t tried it, but something like:
Hydra
Emperina
Archdruid
Hellcat
would probably be able to feed Hydra enough life, attack and mana to be a functional team, but fear for your life against any meta devour/troll/mana-drain team (an impervious 4th troop might at least protect you against Kraken.) I just can’t imagine a combination that would make this troop consistently fun or reliable.
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Use something else. It’s a colossal pita, why anyone would want to use hydra specifically over anything else is beyond me. Even if it’s your only legendary, there are better epics such as rowanne or azura for example.
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My guild and I have been using Dark Troll, Infernus, Elemaugrim and Hydra all week and it is brutal. My average battle lasts less than a minute with that team…it’s just total destruction.
What does Hydra do for that team? Merlion would be way better.
Try summon @drathas again. 
Merlion does make sense, but this thread isn’t about a Merlion team is it? Raven could also work well for finishing off stragglers. There are a number of different fun red combos this week, there are just quite a few people in my guild using that particular combo so I thought I’d share it. Hydras ability to self heal on 4 or 5 gem matches and cause damage when the other team uses skulls make him a viable option for the Troll/Infer/Ele team, even if he might not necessarily be the best option available for some people.
Haha here I am. Not sure I had a ‘best’ Hydra team, but I have enjoyed using him. But as others have stated you need to work hard to get the best out of it. 
I haven’t used it in along time but I did like using:
Hydra
Gorgon
Soothsayer
Sunweaver
Basically, let Hydra take some hits while you fill Sunweaver. Use sunweaver to boost Hydra when near death. Boosted Gorgon is a fine troop if Hydra goes down. It certainly isn’t a reliable meta defeater and I played it really because I like teams of all the one Kingdom
Dark Priestess is a thing now so she would work well with Hydra and I like the idea of using Emperina. Could pair Hydra/Emperina with a Hellcat plus DP?
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My point is that that team isn’t a Hydra team if hydra can be replaced with pretty much any troop.
My suggestion for a Hydra team:
Hydra
DarkMaiden
3rd
4th
Build from here.
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Go nuts. You won’t believe it when you do split damage for 200 or more.
You are getting a sneak peak of my new team release coming up.
Try not to listen when people say this troop or that sucks or is best 
edit: This team isn’t exactly amazingly efficient or reliable… for the reasons @stan was saying. I just wanted to share. You can play it with a lot of finicky management of Mana but it’s not really smooth especially because you have to play the method of Mana gathering for Hydra where you don’t take it directly but let it “happen” by cascades, etc.
edit2: Ok I lied. It actually is farily reliable I was just too lazy to type it all out. The problem is it is a very skill-based deck which requires an understanding of the “flowchart” of strategy built into it.
You have to start with the premise that Hydra’s strength emerges only when she takes damage mostly from Skulls, so we endeavor enable that as much as possible while not seeing her killed until the time is right.
To do that we use Dark Priestess to sap her life which boosts her cast. It also creates the skulls we need to hurt the enemy as we boost Hydra’s attack, but also gain Barrier and accept retaliation and the Trait procs that come with it.
You typically don’t want to gather Mana for Hydra intentionally, or at least you want her to be low priority because casting her early in the fight is a very inefficient use of Mana anyhow. She needs to be hit to get the boost.
Mercy’s cast has to be held until the exact moment. You need to judge at any given time if you will most benefit from casting to replenish the health on Hydra that DP just removed, using it to power The Devoted, or other advanced ploys.
In general keep Hydra alive by allowing her armor and health to drop, but never too far, and heal her when she’s the weakest troop.
Notice that the double Green banner is used. That is so you have the option to grab Green for a quick Priestess Cast or go for the Mercy fill, or both. There’s options built-in there.
Resist to the best of your ability to use Mercy at the outset. Even if conditions are such that you will get The Devoted filled because all you’re doing is healing a troop that doesn’t need healing and changing the fill from one Troop to another. Of course, double-dog advanced play can over-rule this if you have a plan. Try to hold one Cleanse at all times unless you are going in for the kill where Affixes can break you.
That’s all I can think of without getting carried away. I also think it is the effing around stan was talking about. I like to play this way… most do not lol
edit3: Played against Dawnbringer intentionally… sadly Hydra’s Trait Proc is not breaking the Barriers.
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Or try out this elf team and their pet Hydra, could benefit from some tweaking though. Banner choice could change, perhaps too.
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Not gonna lie I read this as ’ B E S T H Y D R A T I O N ?’ at first
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thx m8s
and remember to stay hydrated
kek
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Hydra
DarkMaiden
Aziris
Ketras/War
Proud or Abyssal banner
Use aziris to deliberately give the enemy a skull match, if possible, setting up your move for the following turn.
It is a full red team.
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These are the kind of soft strategies I love. Great call there.
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