As we talked about in the $100 article, Mono-Red gets a bad rap in Commander. As I was considering other ways to mess with the single color, I was brought back to one of the earliest decks my dad ever built. He found this random old Red Legend and, as is his style, thought it was cool. I helped him workshop the deck and it remains a regular of his. He doesn't play it much, but when he does, it's can be quite spectacular.

See, Mono-Red can be really good at throwing damage around.

As he and I talked about it, we realized a few things. First, we want to be able to kill an entire table with Heartless in a single hit. That means doubling damage, which Red is already good at. Second, because of the way the Heartless one is worded (...deals damage to each player equal to half that player's life total, rounded down) (emphasis is mine), if a player has an odd life total when we activate him, they'll survive with one life (let's say you have 21 life. You'll take half your life total rounded down in damage, which is 10 [10.5 gets rounded down], then it'll get doubled to 20, leaving you at 1). This is bad for everyone but us. Finally, we want to be able to do this fast. Let's take these things in order.

That means we need to double some damage. We have Angrath's Marauders, Furnace of Rath, Dictate of the Twin Gods, Gratuitous Violence, and Quest for Pure Flame for our permanent "double all your damage" spells. (Quest for Pure Flame is actually pretty great here, as you'll see in a moment.) We've also got Overblaze and Insult // Injury as one-shot ways to pull off the double damage thing. Seven ways out of 100 isn't a ton, but hopefully we find one, because without it we can't do our thing. I'd probably keep a hand with six lands and a damage doubler, so important is the effect in the deck.

We need to make sure everyone is at an even life total when we activate Hidetsugu (well, everyone but us, of course). Because we're going to kill everyone with the single activation, there's no need to do a lot of damage, we just need to be able to adjust by 1 (or 3) points. We've got a few ways to gain 1 life, even more ways to do 1 to ourselves, and several ways to do 1 damage to someone else (occasionally it is 3, but that has the same effect). We've even got a few ways to do 1 damage to everyone or all our opponents, because sometimes almost everyone is at an odd total and it makes more sense to move everyone then adjust the one remaining. It can also be useful to keep one way of doing damage up if at all possible, because if someone else has a fetch land or some other nefarious way to adjust their own life total, it's nice to be able to respond.

To do this fast, we have two things: Mana rocks and ways to grant Haste. Because we want to leave open the possibility of casting Hidetsugu and activating him on the same turn, we don't have the Red Instants that grant Haste till end of turn. Instead, we're rocking Fervor and the like; ways to give Haste to the whole team no matter what. We also almost always need to cast at least one other relatively expensive spell before we activate (our damage doublers are all fairly pricey, except the Quest), so making sure we get a bit of ramp will help move things along. Imagine the following Magical Christmasland line of play: Turn one, Mountain, Sol Ring, Coldsteel Heart. Turn two, Mountain, Fervor, Goblin Fireslinger. Turn three, Mountain, Dictate of the Twin Gods (flashed in just before our turn four). Turn four, Heartless, tap, do one damage to ourselves in response with the Fireslinger, kill the table and survive at 1 life.

We have two more things going on here, both of which are worth mentioning. Fortune Thief and Platinum Angel are ways to survive Hidetsugu's Heartlessness without having an odd life total. They're nice little backups. Also, we have several ways to draw cards. They're {R}, so more often than not we have to discard to get the cards, but such is the nature of this deck: we need a Furnace of Rath effect, and if we have to pitch our entire hand to get it, so be it.

Note, also, what we don't have going on. We have no removal or interaction of any kind. We are combo, full-bore and full-on. Either we do our thing or we don't, but there will be no equivocating. You pull this out when you want a fast game, because either you're going to win it or you're going to be killed by the rest of the table who are all afraid you're going to win it. Adding cards to slow the game for others makes the deck more resilient, but keep in mind every card you pull is one less way to pull off the combo.

Heartless Hidetsugu | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Heartless Hidetsugu

• Creatures (23)
• 1 Anger
• 1 Angrath's Marauders
• 1 Blisterspit Gremlin
• 1 Brimstone Trebuchet
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Chandra's Magmutt
• 1 Cinder Pyromancer
• 1 Cyclops of Eternal Fury
• 1 Fervent Paincaster
• 1 Fortune Thief
• 1 Generator Servant
• 1 Goblin Fireslinger
• 1 Goblin Goliath
• 1 Lightning Mauler
• 1 Lightning-Rig Crew
• 1 Lobber Crew
• 1 Nettle Drone
• 1 Platinum Angel
• 1 Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded
• 1 Thermo-Alchemist
• 1 Tuktuk Rubblefort
• 1 Urabrask the Hidden
• 1 Welder Automaton

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Chandra Nalaar
• 1 Chandra, Pyromaster

• Instants (3)
• 1 Dangerous Wager
• 1 Overblaze
• 1 Thrill of Possibility

• Sorceries (8)
• 1 Faithless Looting
• 1 Honor the God-Pharaoh
• 1 Insult // Injury
• 1 Magmatic Insight
• 1 Pirate's Pillage
• 1 Seize the Spoils
• 1 Tormenting Voice
• 1 Wild Guess

• Enchantments (6)
• 1 Dictate of the Twin Gods
• 1 Emblem of the Warmind
• 1 Fervor
• 1 Furnace of Rath
• 1 Gratuitous Violence
• 1 Quest for Pure Flame

• Artifacts (17)
• 1 Braidwood Cup
• 1 Chalice of Life
• 1 Claws of Gix
• 1 Coldsteel Heart
• 1 Darksteel Ingot
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Fire Diamond
• 1 Foriysian Totem
• 1 Hammer of Purphoros
• 1 Hedron Archive
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Pristine Talisman
• 1 Scepter of Empires
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Star Compass
• 1 Trading Post
• 1 Worn Powerstone

• Lands (40)
• 25 Mountain
• 1 Desert of the Fervent
• 1 Dwarven Mine
• 1 Flamekin Village
• 1 Forgotten Cave
• 1 Glacial Chasm
• 1 Hall of the Bandit Lord
• 1 High Market
• 1 Kher Keep
• 1 Mana Confluence
• 1 Ramunap Ruins
• 1 Shivan Gorge
• 1 Smoldering Crater
• 1 Strip Mine
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

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Once my dad had his version assembled, we got him some sleeves that say, on the back, "BOOM!" That seems like an apt name.

I have a Purphoros, God of the Forge deck that is similar in effect, if not in style. My friends really don't like it when I play it, but when I do, this is always the question: can they do 40 to me before I can do 120 to them? Playing that deck is always a game of Archenemy until either I win or I'm out of the game. The same is true for Heartless Hidetsugu. If you play it (assuming the people you are playing with understand the stakes and what you're likely to try to do), it's very likely the rest of the table will point directly at you and attempt to kill you before you pull off your combo. Your job is to pull of the combo before they do that.

If that kind of play is fun for you, this will be a delightful deck. If it isn't, well, then this deck is definitely not for you.

With that in mind, do you enjoy decks like this? Either as a deck that automatically becomes the Archenemy or a combo deck that's so all-in there's little or no interaction? While I have you talking, what else would you like to see out of Mono-Red? I might take your suggestion!

I had a $250 budget for this one, but it came it at $212.51. The fetch lands are nice in this one because they are a way to adjust our life total by one, but they're too pricey at this point for this budget. If you have 'em and want to toss them in, though, it wouldn't be a bad thing. We still have some costly cards in Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and Mana Confluence, and Hall of the Bandit Lord is a great way to give Hidetsugu Haste.

Now let's talk about all the things my dad (the OG, to me, when it comes to this deck) said I should change.

He wants:

• Blood Moon
• Mind's Eye in place of Magmatic Insight
• Silent Arbiter
• Stuffy Doll in place of a pinger
• Fiendish Duo instead of Angrath's Marauders
• Dark Sphere
• Urabrask the Hidden in place of Cyclops of Eternal Fury
• Staff of Nin in place of a pinger
• Endless Atlas in place of a pinger
• Loxodon Warhammer
• Swiftfoot Boots
• Lightning Greaves
• Solemn Simulacrum

I'm not going to lie - these are some great suggestions. Blood Moon, in particular, can really hamstring a lot of decks and will help keep you alive. Fiendish Duo is probably better than Angrath's Marauders. Silent Arbiter, too, can help keep you alive, and there's something to be said for giving Hidetsugu Lifelink. Boots and Greaves are both great at what they do; I liked the idea of giving all our stuff Haste so pingers worked right away too, but those cards are great at what they do.

My dad put it rather bluntly: "you've turned the deck into a terrible one-trick pony with no legs." But he's probably not wrong! My deck is designed as a one-trick pony (though "terrible" I think is a bit much). The way I built it it's supposed to either a) work or b) fizzle out and die a pitiful death. He wants a deck that can last in the event the combo doesn't happen on turn five. Both are viable options, and my guess is you could get all those cards he suggested in the deck and still stay under out $250 mark (Blood Moon is $10, and a few of them are $4 and $3, but with almost $40 to play with it should be close). This is a good thing! We are allowed to approach decks and ideas differently, and the game is better for it. Tailor the deck to be what you want it to be, not what someone writing on a website says. All we're doing is giving you an idea. It's your job to make it your own!

Next up: $500. It might seem silly to spend that much on Mono-Red, but if you're going to do it, do it right, right?

Thanks for reading.