MTG Salvation

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Heartless Hidetsugu - The Art of Ending Games

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Hello everyone. This is my list for Heartless Hidetsugu. I've had the deck with this particular commander for only a couple years, but the original deck was led by Zo-Zu the Punisher for about 3 years. The deck is and always has been not so much about winning the game as it is about making the game more desperate for the table as a whole. It creates a sense of urgency and forces the slower, more ponderous decks in the game to either answer me first and foremost or be prepared to have the time frame left to complete their plans continuously cut in half. When Zo-Zu was the commander it contained many more incremental losses of life such as Sulfuric Vortex and Spellshock. With its current setup the deck tries to include more ways to benefit from Hidetsugu by giving him haste and doubling damage. It does have goals it can play towards and if I am trying to win it can be pretty lethal, acting almost as a mono red combo deck. Most of the time, however, when I pull this deck out it is about the acceleration of the game itself and I win mainly because I happened to draw well and went unanswered. I hope you enjoy the list and as always I'm open to suggestions or to explain my current card choices. Have a good day

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Both Furnace of Rath and Gratuitous Violence are way, way better than Curse of Bloodletting for Hidetsugu. You also may want an Expedition Map to tutor up your Glacial Chasm, it saved me several times when I played him. Batterskull isn't great, but if you have one I strongly suggest you add it to the deck to get maximum lifelink redundancy.

You also seem pretty light on card draw, I recommend Tormenting Voice/Wild Guess and Outpost Siege. I like Commune with Lava a lot too, but it's iffier. Sin Prodder is better here than in most decks, but I still don't think it's worth letting your opponents have the choice.

Mana Confluence/City of Brass/Barbarian Ring are secret tech to manage your life total so that Hidetsugu + doubler doesn't kill you. Fetchlands serve the same purpose, and I found myself quite fond of Pyrohemia for similar reasons.

@gxmiter

The reason I don't quite enjoy Furnace of Rath is just the added symmetry without the flash, but yes Gratuitous Violence is super good and I can't believe I forgot about that card; thank you very much for the reminder. I normally test for at least a month of game play before I begin to solidify changes to my decks, however I'm sure that one will perform just the way I want it to. Sin Prodder just barely made it into the list for testing, the problem is I can't remember what the original card was hence why he's in the current list while I'm still testing with him haha. If he isn't at least enjoyable enough then he'll probably drop for something similar. Most likely I'll test out the Outpost Siege you mentioned, though I do like the extra body on Sin Prodder and menace sounds nice. I never even thought about Mana Confluence and City of Brass. Its like a free, reverse Pristine Talisman for life total manipulation. Thanks for the suggestions. I'll be testing them out for sure

OUT
Into the Core
Curse of Bloodletting
Sin Prodder
Soul of Shandalar
Wild Ricochet
Starstorm
Stranglehold
IN
Vandalblast
Gratuitous Violence
Faithless Looting
Hoarding Dragon
Final Fortune
Mana Geyser
Wurmcoil Engine

I haven't had much time to play this deck lately, but since the list went up I've been testing some cards and found these changes to be working pretty well. Into the Core was working alright, but exiling an artifact never seemed to matter in my current meta. For one more mana an overloaded Vandalblast hits everything on board my opponents have which, surprise surprise, is really powerful. A very easy swap from Curse of Bloodletting to Gratuitous Violence. Since Gxmiter reminded me of it I immediately switched them and its been working great ever since. The only thing I miss from the curse is trying to bait other players into killing a particular person with the double damage on them, oh well. Even in a deck that lowers everyone's life total as much as this one does Sin Prodder was pretty bad. Cards that give your opponents choices are just so hard to make use of with intelligent players at the table. Faithless Looting comes in to take it's place as a way to dig for the cards we need. Ever since it came out I've really wanted to make Soul of Shandalar work, but it is so mana intensive. Love the art, love the ability, hate how much I have to pay for said ability. Hoarding Dragon is another evasive body that doubles as a tutor for whatever artifact we want in that game. Usually it's going to search up a mana doubler like Caged Sun or a lifelink effect like Basilisk Collar. Wild Ricochet is a sweet spell that creates very memorable blowout moments, but, again, it costs enough that it's hard to hold up while trying to develop the board. I added Final Fortune in it's place because mainly just because I enjoy extra turn effects and this is one of the cooler ones out there in my opinion. We get second chance to try and win for little mana investment and at instant speed. The downside is we lose if we misjudged the situation. It can also be used for a spite play to just deal as much damage as possible before losing the game, if you're into that kind of thing. Starstorm is a reliable sweeper that can be cycled, I just got bored of it and wanted something a little more explosive. Mana Geyser adds an insane amount of mana when cast at the right moment and creates "infinite" mana with Reiterate. Finally we get to Stranglehold. A great card that affects the game like Torpor Orb, making our opponents' strategies much weaker depending on the decks we're up against. Like with Starstorm I wanted something that felt less like a control card for the deck. I want to be the aggressor when I play this commander so I brought in just a valuable, large creature in Wurmcoil Engine. The 'colorless titan' acts as a great road block when I need to play defense, but also swings in fearlessly when I want to apply pressure to someone. Gaining life from it is a bonus as well when we start making the table drop close to 10 life. The changes have made the deck feel like its running a bit smoother. Hopefully I'll be done testing some more cards in a couple weeks or so. As always I'd love to read any comments or suggestions you might have. Have a great day

Smoke, Silent Arbiter, Crawlspace, Æther Flash and Ensnaring Bridge have all been solid defensive additions to my Hidetsugu deck.

Repercussion is another enchantment you might consider. Its a huge blowout with damage-based sweepers.

Speaking of which, in addition to Rolling Earthquake, Rolling Thunder and Comet Storm are great when you have damage doublers out and need to hit multiple players for the last point of damage, or setting things up by fixing the odd/even life totals before activating Hidetsugu.

@Scourge of the kitchen table

I've tried most of these options before except for Æther Flash. I kind of want to steer the deck towards more of an aggressive shell rather then a combo-control build. I have my Azami deck for that particular build, but thank you for those suggestions. I might give Smoke another try.

Repercussion is more the style I'm looking for. A large scale punishing effect that discourages chump blocking and helps with Red's affinity for damage based removal. I'll give this one a shot for sure

In the current list I do happen to run Rolling Earthquake and Comet Storm. Rolling Thunder and other classic "Fireball" variants never really felt worth it to me because of the splitting damage. It seems versatile, but I enjoy being able to deal 'X' across the board or with more power behind the split like Comet Storm provides.

Thanks again for your suggestions. I'll get some testing in with a few of the cards and see if they make it to the next update. Have a great day

I like Generator Servant and may steal it for my HH deck.

My version is all snow-basics, mostly for Skred and Rimescale Dragon and Scrying Sheets. These aren't much of an advantage, perhaps, but add character.

Price of Progress and Price of Glory help me immensely, as both speed the game up in their own ways: through damage and through keeping people from playing on others' end steps.

Cheers!

Have you considered either of the artifacts to keep yourself from losing the game and thus allowing you to be a tad more reckless, Lich's Mirror Platinum Angel

@krichaiushii

Generator Servant has worked wonders for me very much recommend it as another haste enabler.

The only reason I don't run the 'snow' cards is just because I don't happen to own many snow basics. Most of my time and money have been dedicated to making new decks or upgrading and foiling out my Azami list. When I start working on making this deck my new priority I'm absolutely adding the snow basics and Scrying Sheets. I'll have to test more with Skred though.

Thanks for your comments Have a great day.

@Taleran

Platinum Angel and Platinum Emperion are being tested right now and I think they'll work out pretty well. I guess Lich's Mirror is another way to combo out with a damage doubler, maybe I'll have to try it out.

Thanks and have a great day

If you are going to run snow you can try extraplanar lens

Grafted Exoskeleton on Hidetsugu and your friends wil never play with you again

Quote from aerlberl »

If you are going to run snow you can try extraplanar lens

Yup. Where with my Azami list I simply don't use them because I have a specific foil Island art that I wanted to use, this decks is just about availability. I might also try Glacial Crevasses when I manage to get all the snow-lands together.

Thanks for the comment

Quote from Raptorchan »

Grafted Exoskeleton on Hidetsugu and your friends wil never play with you again

Haha. I did try that one out for a while. They still played with me, but I found there were other cards I enjoyed playing with more. Great as another potential threat to hold over a playgroup though.

Thanks for commenting