Hidetsugu Faster
- bonzaientertainmen
- 25 minutes ago
- 9 min read
As we revisit planes in MTG we get a real positive for commander. I'm talking about updated versions of classic Legendary creatures. Often, that comes with a an expansion of colors and a riff on abilities from the original version. Commander Legends was great for that. Whoever expected to see a new version of Jeddit or even Stangg? Standard legal sets are just as rich for this. Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty brought us Hidetsugu, Devouring Chaos. This is definitely a riff on the original version of the card.
What are the parallels between the two cards? Heartless Hidetsugu is mono Red, whereas the updated version adds black to the color identity. Adding more colors to a deck opens up to more powerful cards and potential new synergies. That's why 5 color decks are so popular. The original Hidetsugu was a total boogeyman of the format. It taps and knocks each player down by half his life total. Having it deal 80 damage on turn 4 or 5 was pretty standard years ago. Hidetsugu, Devouring Chaos is cheaper at only 4 mana instead of 5, and maintains only needing one color of mana to cast it, in this case, black.
The tap ability is really where the two diverge. Heartless Hidetsugu does damage equal to half of each player's life, rounded down. Early on, that's a lot of life. The returns diminish over time, and technically, mathematically, he can never kill a player because you always round the damage down. Hidetsugu, Devouring Chaos doesn't have a problem closing out the game. He just happens to do it much slower since he deals damage equal to the cost of the top card of my library to one target. That seems like a downgrade, but he does offer me card advantage at the same time. It's a three mana upcharge to do it, and the timing restriction is tight, but the opportunity is there.
It almost seems that the original version is better. So how can I take advantage of what the Rakdos version offers and make a viable deck? For starters, I can play both versions in the Rakdos deck. You can't do that the other way around. In all seriousness, though, I thought I could design a deck that took advantage of the impulse draw and could close out a game by doing lethal damage to opponents with my Commander's tap ability. That means I'm going to need to be untapping multiple times in a turn. Untapping is a mixed bag in Rakdos. The easiest place to start is with Threaten effects. They give haste and untap the chosen creature so I can use Hidetsugu's ability right away and string spells. That's a good start, but I can do better.
I added Jandor's Saddlebags for a repeat effect. If that looks familiar to my long term readers, it should. I used it the same way in my first deck, Red Infect. Since that article I've learned I need more of these effects to guarantee their reliability in a deck. Umbral Mantle is a cool old equipment that happens to have the untap symbol in it. It's not something you see very often, but it can be very powerful when paired with a tap ability. Magewright's Stone is adds more redundancy in the same way.
All this tapping and untapping brought with it an expensive bill to pay. I needed to generate lots of mana at key times to sequence these tap effects in quick succession. Luckily, red and black bring with them very powerful rituals. Dark Ritual is probably one of the most well known of these spells. I've found Mana Geyser to be even better in the deck. Especially with 3 opponents on the field. People don't want to be the one to knock out a singular opponent, so it's not uncommon to have 3 people linger on past the midpoint of the game. All that means is more mana for me. It's not uncommon for me to get 3 taps out of Hidetsugu, Devouring Chaos on great turns.
Tapping my commander multiple times a turn is great, but I really need to maximize my damage output. The best way to do that is by controlling the top card of my deck. Doom Whisperer is a classic at this point. Troublesome cards go to the graveyard with Surveil. I prefer Scry in most instances, but Doom Whisperer is a threat to life totals, and his ability is addictively repeatable. Introduction to Prophecy is fairly costed. The fact I get to draw just means I have to stack my options efficiently. The Scry 2 has been less impactful because of the draw. More often than not, I put one card on the bottom, and I'm no closer to knowing what Hidetsugu will flip if I use his ability. Crystal Ball has actually been superior. It's repeatable, which is a big plus. I've found I'm more confident in activating this, since I don't have to have 2 good options on top, like with Introduction to Prophecy.
I knew if I played this fair I wouldn't have any real luck with the deck. Maybe I could have eliminated 1 opponent with Hidetsugu's tap ability, but this wasn't good enough. I want cards that are expensive, but offer a cheap way to cast them. I've had a lot of luck with similar deck building ideas using Evoke, so that was my first stop. I love Ingot Chewer here. If I use my Commander's ability and reveal this Elemental, I get to do 5 damage. If I don't need the 3/3 body, I can just pay 1 red and destroy an artifact. Shriekmaw works the same way. Reveal it to do 5, then evoke it for 2 and destroy a creature.
I have another Ace up my sleeve. I recently did a Keruga, the Macrosage Companion deck, and played around with double cards to play with mana value. Rooms are a great example. When revealed, both sides count, so I'm doing 2 cards worth of damage with only 1 card. We love damage doublers, so this feels similar. Speaking of doubling, I added Ticket Booth/Tunnel of Hate. Tunnel of Hate gives one of my attacking creatures double strike. I've got a couple mid to high power creatures in the deck, so I'm happy to double the damage output. I also have another trick with it, more on that to come. The other half of the card, Ticket Booth, has some real utility. Manifest Dread is better than expected here. Normally, it's somewhat lackluster, but with this deck, sometimes I need to move past a blockage of cards on top of my deck, and Manifesting Dread will do that.
Using Double cards like rooms might seem like small utility, but they are weaponized to knock out opponents. If I activate Hidetsugu, Devouring Chaos, and have Unholy Annex/Ritual Chamber on top, that represents 8 damage I can use against an opponent. Knocking out 20% of someone's life total is really impressive in one turn. My Commander's ability isn't free. I'm not going to have 11 mana available in the mid game to activate the ability and cast an 8 mana spell. This division of the cards means I can play the cheap half on the same turn and wait for a later and impactful turn to unlock the second half of the card.
Other cost reduction avenues are available to me here as well. Avatar of Woe is a classic in the format and worth playing today. If my commander reveals it, that's 8 damage I get to punish someone with. I can play the Avatar for cheap, at only 2 mana, since there are always tons of creatures in graveyards. After that, the creature continues to be a threat since it can tap to destroy a creature, and it's an evasive 6 power creature. Remember when I talked about Tunnel of Hate and mid power creatures having double strike? This can be the threat or what clears the way. Snuff Out represents 4 damage to an opponent but also 4 damage to me if I want to cast it without any mana. I just have to make sure I target something that will do more than 4 damage through the course of the game for this to be profitable.
Between the untapping, double cards, and cost reducing spells I have lots of ways to deal direct damage to opponents. I knew I could do better, though. There are ways in this color combo to reward myself or punish opponents just because I cast spells from exile. It's a whole archetype thanks to Prosper, Tome-Bound. My commander is exiling spells for me to cast, and I have adventure cards like Embreth Shieldbreaker in the deck. Why wouldn't I weaponize that? Passionate Archeologist turns my exiled spells into more damage. Even if I'm only using the cheap side of a spell, I welcome the extra damage. Similarly, Nalfeshnee offers me a doubling of sorts. It copies my spells from exile, even if it's a permanent. It just doesn't stick around long. I even added Chandra's Incinerator to the deck to extend my non combat damage plan. The fact that it offers natural cost reduction is completely in line with what the deck wants to do.
All these options synergize really well with my commander. Even with all of my ways to extend my damage, I was still taking multiple turns to clear out all my opponents. Even something as powerful as City on Fire isn't turning me into a 3 turn win. I had to push more damage through. Or did I? It turns out I just need to make the damage more impactful. Infect may have a bad reputation, but there's no understating the sheer power it offers to my strategy. I was worried about having to use my commander's ability 3 or 4 times just to eliminate 1 opponent. With infect, I can get by with 2 activations, 1 if I have any kind of damage doubler.
I have a couple of different ways to grant infect to creatures in my deck. Some linger, others come as more of a surprise. Grafted Exoskeleton is nice because it lingers on the board. I can keep equiping it to my commander and continue to to dole out poison counters every turn. Even when my commander is removed, I can still suit up another creature with Grafted Exoskeleton and deal with a problematic opponent. Glistening Oil is a little trickier. It eventually removes my own commander with -1/-1 counters. This may seem like a problem, but my commander has a problem with getting removed anyway, so the clock doesn't matter anyway. I also don't care about Hidetsugu's power since the damage he deals is relative to the revealed card. Glistening Oil does one better because it returns to my hand when the enchanted creature dies. It's just a cycle of punishment for opponents. One day, I hope to proliferate the -1/-1 counter on my own commander to kill it to dodge an exile spell cast against Glistening Oil. It's never happened, but I have that play pattern in my back pocket in case the opportunity ever presents itself.
That's solid. What does the deck look like as a whole? Like this.
Baneful Omen | ||
Keen Duelist | ||
Furnace of Rath | Threaten | |
Harness by Force | ||
Wild-Magic Sorcerer | Herigast, Erupting Nullkite | |
Murderous Rider | Funeral Room/Awakening Hall | |
Feed the Swarm | Virtue of Persistence | |
Topaz Dragon | Hearth Elemental | |
Blasphemous Act | The Cauldron of Eternity | |
Chaos Warp | Mind Stone | |
Bedevil | Cryptolith Fragment | Seer's Lantern |
Dark Ritual | Taken by Nightmares | |
Shriekmaw | Seething Song | Poison the Cup |
Rakdos Charm | Shadows of the Past | |
Blood Money | Jet Medalion | Woe Strider |
Mutinous Masacre | Ruby Medallion | Whip of Erebos |
Snuff Out | ||
Avatar of Woe | Tainted Strike | Phyresis |
Rakdos Key Rune | ||
Dictate of the Twin Gods | Erebos, God of the Dead | Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose |
Crystal Grotto | Tyrite Sanctum | Ghost Quarter |
Zalafrin Void | Isolated Watchtower | Bojuka Bog |
Temple of Malice | Terrain Generator | Blast Zone |
Karn's Bastion | Scavenger Grounds | Ramunap Ruins |
Barbarian Ring | Field of Ruin | Maestro's Theatre |
Swamp x11 | Mountain x10 | |
What do you think? On the surface the deck really revolves around the commander. I have pulled some ways to do direct damage in and out of the deck over iterations. Siege-Gang Commander and Spawn-Gang Commander come to mind. The damage is only OK, it's when paired with infect that these really shine. The fact that they're both 5 mana spells that knock out a sizeable chunk of life when revealed with Hidetsugu, Devouring Chaos gives them more upside. Baneful Omen and Heartless Hidetsugu do their best impressions of my commander if it's not on the battlefield, so I feel like I have even more redundancy.
I also have a soft spot for some of my card advantage. Sin Prodder has been fun, especially in repeat games. The person who pays life to prevent me from drawing a card automatically becomes my target. They can expect to lose 5 or more life in that turn just from Hidetsugu on top of what Sin Prodder does to them. People stop taking the damage from Sin Prodder very quickly after that. Twilight Prophet works great if I can Scry before my turn, but either way it's draining and I'm gaining once the City's Blessing is active. The extra card is still the best part of the ability.
Thanks for reading and all the support to date. I have affiliate links with Mana Pool and TCG Player to help fund these off the wall strategies. It's what makes all this possible.
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