Wednesday, December 8, 2010

My Top Ten Favorite Magic Cards #9




Heartless Hidetsugu in your deck rarely fails to make multiplayer games more interesting. Although he usually has a huge target on his head as soon as he hits play, if you activate him at least once, whether with haste or some sort of protection, you know the game is probably coming down to the wire in an intense wild west showdown. Now, maybe these moments are more fun for me but I think it is hard to deny the fact that this guy has an intensity that few other multiplayer cards have. It's by no means an immediate win card and is hard to do much with him without some support since he is so easy and desire to kill in addition to being generally unable to win the game on his own (damn you rounding down!), but, if your opponents answers have been exhausted or the right pieces of the puzzle fall together, winning with this guy is like being the good guy in a movie slowly walking away with a huge explosion behind you.


Although this card has a very experiential, splashy Timmy effect, this card is one of the most Johnny type cards I like to play with because it really needs to have support cards to make it work. As you all have witnessed, lifelink or haste are insane with this guy. Mother of Runes or some sort of protection is generally pretty essential too. Burn can be pretty essential too to finish off your opponents' last few life. I suppose it could be fun to throw this guy randomly into a multiplayer deck with little support, but by himself, while dealing a buttload of damage usually, Heartless Hidetsugu is a little too risky if you don't have a significant life advantage. Few other magic cards have such a powerful effect that speed up a multiplayer game but require such a maniacal master plan that takes into account all the ins and outs and counter-strategies. He is also my date to prom.

3 comments:

  1. Hate hate hate this card. That said, I don't disagree with any of the points you made, especially about being your prom date, but he's killed me a number of times and is definitely a kill on sight sort of threat. I will say that when they changed lifelink so that multiple occurrences were redundant instead of additive, I thought of this card and smiled.

    So you're right, it is a cool card. Just don't expect me to rejoice when he shows up, because it usually things are going to get crazy (without removal, of course).

    Do you think this card is more Johnny than Kiki-Jiki?

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  2. I can understand your disdain for this card. I bet if I played against it much, I would feel the same way.

    I would say Heartless Hidetsugu is more Johnny than kiki-jiki. Kiki-jiki has quite good synergy with really any random creature and really shines with leaves play and comes into play triggers, which are numerous. Playing with Kiki-jiki is more of a tempo or aggro/control strategy, whereas Heartless Hidetsugu needs the right role players used in conjunction with it to be very effective.

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  3. You've got a good point, Kiki-Jiki works decently with most any creature, whereas Heartless Hidetsugu really needs very specific support. I understand why you like the card, but it's a little annoying to play against, at least if you've got it and some sort of lifegain going on.

    But that's the fun of magic.

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