Hecatomb

Enchantment

When Hecatomb enters the battlefield, sacrifice Hecatomb unless you sacrifice four creatures.

Tap an untapped Swamp you control: Hecatomb deals 1 damage to target creature or player.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (21)

SteelSentry on How is Black Market Connections …

1 week ago

On the topic of Black wanting you to play more black, that's definitely something Rosewater has mentioned. Not just a lot of pip-intensive cards on both the cheap and expensive ends from Black Knight to Griselbrand, but black has a lot of cards that want you to play more swamps; a lot more swamps. Dread Presence, Crypt Ghast, Hecatomb, Cabal Coffers. From the Black episode of his podcast:

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And the idea is that black kind of likes to encourage you to play more black. That black is the color that kind of says, “Hey,” you know, that tempts you. Like, you know, the way I always joke about it is, imagine black is trying to, like, you know, pitch itself to the—to the Magic users. “Hey, Magic user, come here. Oh look, we can kill creatures easily, and oh look, we can do discard, and…” Kind of lures you with things that it can do.

And then when you’re there, it’s like “Oh, well, for just a little more black you can have a Black Knight, or you can…” You know. Like, it just sort of—it does the soft sell, and at some point you’re like, “Oh, well my swamps produce more black mana? I should just play mono-black.”

And I like to think that black has the—has the best salesmanship. That like, it slowly lures you in, and maybe makes you want to play more black. And I always consider that kind of a fun—like, that’s kind of black’s nature, that black will like lure you in with some splash, and then before you know it you’re just playing mono-black, like “How’d I get here?”

SufferFromEDHD on The Black Machine

1 year ago

Planar Portal seems bad in the color known for tutors.

Where is the Deserted Temple for the big mana lands? And where is the Dust Bowl with that many basic swamps?

Karn's Bastion would feed your commander, your planeswalkers, Lux Cannon and a few creatures.

Hecatomb dope! Great use of old jank.

Koskun Falls would be another weird old card that would fit this strategy.

plainsrunner on Catch-22: Damned if You Tap, Damned if You Don't

3 years ago

It looks like this deck is all about ramp, into even more ramp. While the symmetrical ramp effects seem like they can be a win condition in themselves given your commander's ability, I'd be wary of them, since your opponents can easily use those effects to beat you before the mana burn can take them out. Also, you only have 3 cards that I can see that prevent the mana from burning you too, and two of those only work for one color of mana. I think you may need to figure out what your win conditions are and add more in, probably in exchange for some of the ramp.

Zulaport Cutthroat is a staple in aristocrat strategies, but this doesn't seem like an aristocrat deck. Same with Mayhem Devil.

In a similar vein, how many creatures (besides your scute swarm tokens) do you really want to be sacrificing? Hecatomb and Primal Growth seem good in decks that have lots of sacrifice fodder, but most of your creatures seem like the kind you'd want to be keeping around.

Trepanation Blade seems more suited to a mill deck. any particular reason you included it here?

Braid of Fire seems like a terrible card in this deck. Since you don't have many permanents with mana sinks built in, and no mono-red instants, the only way to keep yourself from dying to this card is to have Leyline Tyrant or Horizon Stone out, which is hard to guarantee, even with the tutors in this deck. A card that will straight up kill you except in very specific circumstances, in which case it's kind of a win-more card, seems like a good one to toss.

Exploding Borders is way overcosted. It can do at most 3 damage to a player, and get you a basic land. The damage is negligible, so the only important part of the card is the land, which can be done for half the cost. If you really want that much ramp I'd suggest replacing it with Skyshroud Claim, which is the same mana cost, less colors to have to pay, gets you twice the lands, and gets them untapped. The fact that they have to be forests is balanced out by them not having to be basic.

You only have 7 landfall triggers that are affected by Ancient Greenwarden, and three of them are your bounce lands, forcing you to bounce two lands when you play them instead of just one. While getting an extra Scute Swarm trigger is nice, I don't think it's worth it in this deck that otherwise doesn't really care about landfall. The ability to play lands from your graveyard is already covered by two other, cheaper cards, so I'd cut this one.

MagicMarc on I need the hive mind …

3 years ago

There are a lot of extremely powerful timmy effects you can put in your 100 and dominate tables if not answered. Just go extreme style!

Fire Ants + Scythe of the Wretched + Basilisk Collar. Activate this once at any table for good times. It kills, at instant speed, every other creature in play, other than the Fire Ants, without flying. You gain life equal to 1 x number of creatures killed. Then all of the killed creatures are returned to play under your control with the last one returned getting equipped with the Scythe.

A more sedate, but powerful combination of cards is Spikeshot Goblin + Ring of Valkas or Forced Adaptation. Every turn for 1 mana you can deal the goblin's power to any target. And it keeps growing if equipped or enchanted with anything that grows it's power. Once it's bigger than your opponent's life total, you win for 1 red mana!

If you go black, then you can do something like this;

Crypt Rats + Eternal Thirst + Lashknife Barrier. Activate the crypt rats for 1, gain life equal to 1x total number of players and creatures, if anything dies the rats get +1/+1 counters for every creature that died. Lashknife Barrier means none of your creatures took damage. Let it resolve. Activate it again for 1, do it all over again. This will kill any number of creatures and players limited only by your Swamp count. If you have an Ogre Slumlord in play when you do this then your Crypt Rats now have deathtouch and you get 1/1 deathtouching rats for all the creatures that died.

Finally, my favorite timmy color, blue;

Horseshoe Crab + Hermetic Study is where it starts. Tap the crab, timmy for 1. Spend 1 blue to untap the crab and do it again! On your opponent's end step the crab makes all of your islands work like Hecatomb does for swamps! (Which you could also throw in a black deck for Timmy Lands!). But the crab gets better! Add Curiosity or Sigil of Sleep to the Horseshoe Crab + Hermetic Study setup leads to serious board states.

Snickles@EDH_only on You have been freed of weakness and made compleat.

4 years ago

oh good, your are running the all important Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth - swampwalking over with your general is too much fun.

personal taste - lots of high cost end spells, and a bit light on creatures. might consider Hecatomb for removal / sac fodder / control

Bloodchief Ascension is a must in most black decks I've found - gains life, hurts opponents, and keeps the pressure on.

if your are looking at keeping pressure on opponents as opposed to building up to a burst, Painful Quandary and Polluted Bonds are good also.

Snickles@EDH_only on Erebos, Discard and Value

5 years ago

have you considered Zulaport Cutthroat as a 2nd blood artist effect? only works for your creatures, but with sac outlets it works wonders.

Sifter of Skulls is another token generator for sac bait, and the tokens themselves can sac for mana.

if you're already mono black, and generating sac fodder, Hecatomb might be up your alley for removal effects

Liquidbeaver on Rataliation

6 years ago

NV_1980: It only took me like half a year to get back to you, but here we are!

I've never seen Hecatomb before, but I really like it, especially because of the high basic land count of this deck, and how it compliments Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

I'm actually in the middle of a small rebuild of this deck, and I am definitely going to playtest with Hecatomb in it for some added pinging. It will be especially nice later game or when I have no cards in hand and have no use for the land that turn.

Great suggestion!

Paladin_11111 on MONO-BLACK Endrek

6 years ago

Love the Hecatomb NV_1980. And yes, I will definetley check out your mono-black. Thanks man.