Arcane Foundry › Commanders › Gyrus, Waker of Corpses

Gyrus, Waker of Corpses

Legendary Creature — Hydra · {X}{B}{R}{G} · Black/Green/Red commander

Gyrus enters with a number of +1/+1 counters on it equal to the amount of mana spent to cast it. Whenever Gyrus attacks, you may exile target creature card with lesser power from your graveyard. If you do, create a token that's a copy of that card and that's tapped and attacking. Exile the token at end of combat.

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What Gyrus, Waker of Corpses actually does

Read off the card by the same engine the Forge and Analyzer use — this is the mechanical classification, not a summary.

• Triggered ability · attackWhenever Gyrus attacks, you may exile target creature card with lesser power from your graveyard. If you do, create a token that's a copy of that card and that's tapped and attacking. Exile the token

What a Gyrus, Waker of Corpses deck needs

Plays as copy engine. What the commander asks of the other 99 — read from the card and checked by hand.

• high-value creatures and activated-ability creatures worth copying or borrowing
• counter doublers and proliferate (it grows only itself with +1/+1 counters)
• self-mill, discard and recursion (the graveyard is a resource its text reads)
• token payoffs — anthems, sacrifice outlets and go-wide finishers (it makes tokens on repeat)
• haste, evasion and protection for the commander, and extra combats (its own attack is the engine)

The Gyrus, Waker of Corpses deck plan

The roles the Forge fills for this commander, and how many cards of each.

• 12× A permanent whose value is in its enter-the-battlefield trigger — the payload a blink deck reuses
• 6× Put haste on the commander the turn it resolves — a tap ability is unusable otherwise
• 4× Make the commander connect — a body that never deals combat damage never triggers
• 12× Make creature tokens — a static anthem or a go-wide commander needs a board to be wide
• 6× Put your own cards into your graveyard as a resource
• 6× Put +1/+1 counters on creatures you control, or multiply the ones already there
• 4× A team pump that actually pumps tokens
• 5× Actually remove one problem permanent — preventing its damage is not removing it
• 9× Find the exact card the plan needs

Best cards for Gyrus, Waker of Corpses

Ranked by an engine that reads what each card does — its real cost, its delay and how reliably it works — rather than counting how often other people play it.

Build this deck in the Arcane Forge →

Arcane Foundry is free to join and every tool is included: the Arcane Forge deck builder, the ARCANE Analyzer that scores a deck by simulating games rather than counting staples, a card scanner, a collection vault, and live webcam Commander tables. Read the guide · Browse all commanders · Pricing