hideaway is a cool ability, but topdecking isn't very common - for both players at least
Dingo777
★★★☆☆ (3.6/5.0)(4 votes)
weakest of the 5 hideaways, black does like to force discard but to get this you have to have no cards in your hand, not a good situation for you
2pcsofcandy
★★★★☆ (4.7/5.0)(3 votes)
Yeah, black really got the shaft here with the hideaway lands. You'd have to work around activating this ability whereas the others have abilities that function just off of what your deck should be doing in the first place. And if you're going to be spending that much effort, why not just pay for the spell?
Mode
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(3 votes)
Heck, i can understand that this would have been quite powerful, maybe even better than the other Hideaway lands if just either condition was required, but like this that card is quite weak and rather useless... Possibly they didn't want only you to have no cards in hand since this could make an unconditional activation of that ability possible once you empty your hand. But since your opponent knows what this land does, he won't let you activate that ability too easy, therefore you'd have to come up with some discard in order to be able to activate it, hence i don't think this requirement alone would have been too powerful actually.
Sigh...maybe this can still find some use in a Hellbent deck or something...
does anyone else really want to go to the place depicted in the artwork?
DrJones
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(3 votes)
Mmmm... think of Balance effects and it might work in a white/black deck. Probably one of the few cards that would work well with Mind Swords.
Blackworm_Bloodworm
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(3 votes)
Even with a Hellbent deck the conditions are nearly impossible to pull off; trust me, I've tried. It seems like a cool idea at first, but there's a reason these things are going for 10¢ each...
PolskiSuzeren
★★★★☆ (4.8/5.0)(2 votes)
this turn one or two, hide something nice and gamebreaking. turn three, show and tell a hivemind in. turn four, one with nothing, activate hollow.
GengilOrbios
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(2 votes)
i play this 2x in my lorwyn faerie deck with -liliana vess
powerdude
★★★★☆ (4.1/5.0)(5 votes)
wow!! just noticed that there is a cycle of 7 cmc rare creatures from shadowmoor that corrispond to the hideaway lands from lorwyn! just think,
This is BETTER in multiplayer than Duals- consider for example, the design of some card like Syphon Mind- true that one in particular would fill your hand, but in fact Discard has been severely weakened in Duels, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME they allow it to be fairly strong in Multiplayer, because they assume that people can reload/fill much, much more easily in that format- which they can.
You ask for this card to be more powerful, when I already know exactly what I want it for: Kaalia of the Vast EDH. Kaalia herself is strong enough to be repeatable, but it's difficult for her to get more than one extra free creature per turn.
Use the Hideaways for redundancy- rather than needing for them to be Engines like Kaalia, you can get fine use out of them as one-shot spells, gambles to see if you can greatly increase the pressure on a single turn. Since you don't need to control everyone's hands EVERY TURN, you will find it is much more doable to try to find the right moment to simply wipe out everyone's hand once, so that you can trigger this.
The kinds of Discard spells Wizards is willing to allow having around are exactly suited to this purpose- they do not want anyone able to easily make 'Discard LOCK' decks, but they are fine with cards like Malfegor, Syphon Mind, or other cards causing a lot of cards to be discarded, but only in a way that is usually a one-shot effect, and hard to work into an actual control strategy.
Hellbent enablers are great for Kaalia decks, because you can also Reanimate. AND you get to play Balance too. Playing all three R/B/W Hideaway Lands, plus Kaalia herself, gives you that many more chances to try to play a big creature for free.
Whenever you see a card like this and think 'this WOULD be good or great, but the cost is too much', it's usually because you are trying to put the card into the wrong deck. Sometimes, a card's dream deck hasn't yet been thought of yet. But the fact that this card forces you to think of a deck similar to the one I described, while it might seem like jumping through a lot of hoops, the result is something extremely much worth it.
There aren't really any Modern-framed cards that actually deserve this low a rating- the truth is people simply haven't yet discovered how to use them yet.
Starting to come up with a deck build around this, Brink of Madness and Putrid imp. Obviously you'd need to some other cards to support the set up (still thinking that part through) but it seems like it could be made viable.
Of course, compare it to windbrisk and it's on a whole other power level (a much lower one), but it could make a fun deck to build around.
Kontrah
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(2 votes)
Perhaps more people will find its ability playable now that Sire of Insanity exists.
zenitramleirdag
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
c'mon guys! it aint that bad..i think this could work well in a pox deck..the deck's designed to put players in top deck mode..
Totema
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Having a limited use doesn't necessarily make it the worst. In fact, in the right deck, this can have the downright most reliable trigger.
Comments (21)
Possibly they didn't want only you to have no cards in hand since this could make an unconditional activation of that ability possible once you empty your hand.
But since your opponent knows what this land does, he won't let you activate that ability too easy, therefore you'd have to come up with some discard in order to be able to activate it, hence i don't think this requirement alone would have been too powerful actually.
Sigh...maybe this can still find some use in a Hellbent deck or something...
It seems like a cool idea at first, but there's a reason these things are going for 10¢ each...
turn three, show and tell a hivemind in.
turn four, one with nothing, activate hollow.
hollowborn barghest for howltooth hollow.
isleback spawn for shelldock isle.
knollspine dragon for spinerock knoll.
mossbridge troll for mosswort bridge.
windbrisk raptor for windbrisk heights.
This is BETTER in multiplayer than Duals- consider for example, the design of some card like Syphon Mind- true that one in particular would fill your hand, but in fact Discard has been severely weakened in Duels, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME they allow it to be fairly strong in Multiplayer, because they assume that people can reload/fill much, much more easily in that format- which they can.
You ask for this card to be more powerful, when I already know exactly what I want it for: Kaalia of the Vast EDH. Kaalia herself is strong enough to be repeatable, but it's difficult for her to get more than one extra free creature per turn.
Use the Hideaways for redundancy- rather than needing for them to be Engines like Kaalia, you can get fine use out of them as one-shot spells, gambles to see if you can greatly increase the pressure on a single turn. Since you don't need to control everyone's hands EVERY TURN, you will find it is much more doable to try to find the right moment to simply wipe out everyone's hand once, so that you can trigger this.
The kinds of Discard spells Wizards is willing to allow having around are exactly suited to this purpose- they do not want anyone able to easily make 'Discard LOCK' decks, but they are fine with cards like Malfegor, Syphon Mind, or other cards causing a lot of cards to be discarded, but only in a way that is usually a one-shot effect, and hard to work into an actual control strategy.
Hellbent enablers are great for Kaalia decks, because you can also Reanimate. AND you get to play Balance too. Playing all three R/B/W Hideaway Lands, plus Kaalia herself, gives you that many more chances to try to play a big creature for free.
Whenever you see a card like this and think 'this WOULD be good or great, but the cost is too much', it's usually because you are trying to put the card into the wrong deck. Sometimes, a card's dream deck hasn't yet been thought of yet. But the fact that this card forces you to think of a deck similar to the one I described, while it might seem like jumping through a lot of hoops, the result is something extremely much worth it.
There aren't really any Modern-framed cards that actually deserve this low a rating- the truth is people simply haven't yet discovered how to use them yet.
Of course, compare it to windbrisk and it's on a whole other power level (a much lower one), but it could make a fun deck to build around.