Heartless Hidetsugu Beats You With Math In MTG Commander Masters

We’re back with yet another card preview, this time for the Heartless Hidetsugu creature featured in Magic: The Gathering (MTG) Commander Masters thanks to our friends at Wizards of the Coast.

While not a new card, Heartless Hidetsugu is a good card for any Red deck in MTG- it’s a 5-cost Legendary creature with the ability to really punish Black decks who like paying life for extra effects.

It’s also a Legendary Creature- meaning if you’re okay with playing a mono-red, you can easily do so and have its terrifying ability at your disposal.

The effect of Heartless Hidetsugu is as follows:

[Tap] Heartless Hidetsugu deals damage to each player equal to half that player’s life total, rounded down

Now it’s really important to note the caveats with this ability. First off, as a tap ability you will want to keep it alive for a whole turn before you can use it. Summoning Sickness will still apply on your opponent’s turn too, so you’re going to have this dud for essentially two combat phases unless you intend to block with it.

The second one is the ability itself- it does not discriminate between players, meaning you yourself will also have your life sliced in half. It’s a risky ability to use, but can be incredibly oppressive if you have the means to keep your own stamina going. Note that it also doesn’t count as Combat Damage, so don’t expect cards like Jaheira’s Respite to block it.

Personally I wouldn’t recommend it as a Commander- if you intend to use its ability more than once you’re going to need a supplementary color to go with it, like Red/White so that you don’t math yourself into oblivion. You can pair it with cards like Act of Heroism or Aim High to go for extremely bold gambles- activating its ability twice in the same turn. That definitely feels like the kind of player Heartless Hidetsugu is for- bold players who like making less logical plays to become the biggest threat in the session.

Just remember that math only maims, never kills- so be sure to pack additional burn cards like Lightning Bolt or just powerful creatures to actually finish off your opponents once you’ve gotten their health low enough.

And that’s it for this round’s card preview! Heartless Hidetsugu will be available as part of the MTG Commander Masters set, available August 4th. Our thanks to Wizards of the Coast for letting us check out this card ahead of the set’s release!

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