Opinions on new Hydra commander?

[WWolfe]

Hopefully someone good at these things will add in the card image, but this is the card...

https://mythicspoiler.com/c18/cards/gyruswakerofcorpses.html

Gyrus, Waker of Corpses
XBRG
Legendary Creature - Hydra
Gyrus, Waker of Corpses enters the battlefield 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.

The first ability with +1/+1 counters and it's casting cost is sort of reminscent of Jeleva's casting cost ability, which is fitting for a Hydra.

The second ability though, eh. The lesser power part is kind of troubling and then exiling the token at the end of combat seems clunky.

What are your thoughts?

[Morganator 2.0]

For starters, the commander tax is kinda weird. It's starting cost is XBRG, and after the second time it will be X2BRG, then X4BRG, etc. I already know at least one person is going to say it ignores commander tax. I just know it.

The second ability is really cool. Think of all the amazing creatures you can bring back. Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Disciple of Bolas, Eternal Witness, Reclamation Sage, Zealous Conscripts, Fleshbag Marauder (or Merciless Executioner), Shriekmaw. Those are just some examples, and all of them are 3 power or less, something that shouldn't be too hard. The problem is the build around. You need lots of self-mill cards, and cards that boost +1/+1 counters. You'll also want mana ramp (something you should already have) and haste enablers.

[Soren841]

I have him piloting a stax deck, he can reanimate half of the kiki jiki combo for 3 mana so that's good

[MarshallLaw]

Eh... although the art is cool, Gyrus seems kinda... generic? Uninteresting? Not very flavorful? A little underwhelmed, TBH. Might be fun to abuse multiple combat phases, though! Strionic Resonator helps too.

[Mostlynotgay]

it's a hydra commander whose best use is exiling creatures that...aren't hydras (many of which are 0/0, or only get bigger the turn after you play them, or have a cost that makes them impractical with the ability).  It's trigger means you aren't getting any of the sweet "when this creature attacks" triggers. The fact that it exiles a creature with "less power" means that you are limited in what you can grab when you *do* attack.  and the token doesn't have haste so there's that.  and it enters already tapped, so there's that. and the thing has to be in the GY when he attacks. Idk. At first blush I was like "oh wow that's kind of cool." but, at the end of the day, it's a "I bring things back from the dead" hydra card that can't bring hydras back from the dead.

Looks frikken cool, though

[robort]

Meh.... It only gets counters with no trample, no way besides recasting it as a commander to get bigger. It has recursion but you are going to need important creatures with ETB triggers in your graveyard for this to work. Then you are forced to attack to get a token of said creature that gets exiled at the end of turn. You'll want to dump counters on this creature because getting back bigger stuff by letting it die to recast it for more mana will take longer and you are going to want creatures in your graveyard.

So you have cast commander, attack with commander, recursion in graveyard. 3 hoops to jump through just to get another ETB from a creature from graveyard. Then creature in graveyard has to meet said condition of having less power then the commander to come back. That to me seems a bit much to use/abuse your graveyard.

This card I can see as part of the 99 but not as a commander.