Legendary Creature — Demon Kraken

Gyruda, Doom of Depths

Mana value6EDHREC#4,277

Build with Wyrm Build manually Card details

The Commander

Companion — Your starting deck contains only cards with even mana values. (If this card is your chosen companion, you may put it into your hand from outside the game for {3} as a sorcery.)

When Gyruda enters, each player mills four cards. Put a creature card with an even mana value from among the milled cards onto the battlefield under your control.

Guide

Gameplan

Gyruda cheats big even-costed creatures into play by milling and reanimating, then loops via blink and reanimation to repeat the trigger and snowball a board (or assemble a combo). Early turns ramp and set up graveyard/blink engines; mid-game Gyruda enters, steals or returns a fatty, and you chain effects until the board breaks open.

Strengths

Free reanimation on a stick that steals creatures from any player's mill, including opponents'
Built-in deckbuilding payoff—an even-only deck still packs powerful clones, reanimators, and control pieces
Supports a hard infinite combo with Clever Impersonator/Spark Double-style clones plus a sac/blink outlet
Dimir gives premium interaction, card advantage, and tutors

Weaknesses

The even-only restriction locks you out of many staples (Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor, Cyclonic Rift, Counterspell)
Six mana and color-intensive; without ramp Gyruda comes down late
Mill four can whiff if no even creature is among the milled cards
Heavy reliance on the graveyard and the commander makes you vulnerable to exile and removal
Repeated blink/reanimation invites targeted hate and board wipes that set you far back

Key Cards

Spark Double — Copies Gyruda; with a sac outlet that returns or blinks it, you loop infinite mill/reanimation and self-mill into a wincon.
Clever Impersonator — Even-cost clone that can copy Gyruda or your best creature to repeat the enter trigger.
Phantasmal Image — Cheap even-cost clone enabling Gyruda copy loops and value duplication of bombs.
Thassa, Deep-Dwelling — Blinks Gyruda every turn for repeatable reanimation while dodging removal.
Conjurer's Closet — End-step blink reliably re-triggers Gyruda's mill-and-reanimate engine.
Living Death — Even-cost mass reanimation that turns your self-mill into a battlefield full of threats.
Eternal Witness — Even-mana value recursion to rebuy wipes, removal, and combo pieces from the yard.

Upgrade Path

Lean into a tight clone-loop combo line (Spark Double or Phantasmal Image + a free blink/sac outlet) backed by Thassa's Oracle as a clean finisher to win without a long board stall. Maximize even-cost ramp (Arcane Signet, Coalition Relic, Hedron Archive) and even-cost tutors/recursion to find and protect Gyruda faster, and add resilient blink enablers like Conjurer's Closet and Deadeye Navigator. Round out with the best even-mana Dimir interaction and graveyard insurance so a single exile effect doesn't end your game.

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

▸Infinite mill of the table via a Gyruda clone loop, or self-mill into Thassa's Oracle/Laboratory Maniac
▸Assemble an overwhelming board of reanimated even-cost bombs and swing
▸Steal opponents' best creatures off their own mill to dominate combat
▸Grind value with blink loops until opponents run out of resources

Archetypes

Reanimator — Gyruda mills and returns even-cost fatties for free, and the deck loads the yard to cheat threats back.
Combo — Gyruda plus a clone (Spark Double/Phantasmal Image) and a recursion/sac loop self-mills the library for an infinite-value kill.
Blink — Repeatedly flickering Gyruda re-triggers its powerful enter ability for continuous reanimation.
Control — Dimir interaction and recurring threats let you grind opponents out while protecting the engine.