"Hollow One: Hollow there!"

"Hollow One: Hollow there!"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr, MD

With every set there are some people who look at a card and ask themselves, "How fast can I actually get this creature out to the battlefield?" Hollow One who is a 4/4 at 5 colorless mana cost is the creature in Hour of Devastation that makes me want to  ask this question.

Normally you want to hold off hope on any 5 mana CMC creatures but you can actually cheat this card into play for an alternative cost. It costs 2 colorless mana less to cast for any card you cycled or discard this turn. And out of the corner of my vision the 4 sets of Putrid Imps that I have horded when Graveborn came out suddenly raised little hands and volunteered themselves for the job.

On turn 1 you could go ahead and cast the Putrid Imp for one mana, Discard 3 cards and get a Hollow One into play.The ideal scenario is for you to have 1 land  1 Putrid Imp ,any 3 cards to discard and at best 2 Hollow Ones at hand. So think about it for a moment. At the cost of your entire hand and any sort of response you now have 2 4/4 creatures on turn one. A massive 8 damage swing per turn if your opponent cannot take care of them.

In standard or modern I see the Hollow Ones being cast at the end of a 3 cycling cycle(yeah there I said it , cycling cycle), card drawing turn. There are still cards from Inistrad like the Olivia's Dragoon or the Noose Constrictor who lets you discard cards on turn two and you could also take advantage of the Hollow One here.It just depends on which colors you want to mix it with.

Excited yet? I know I am. Time to horde something that goes with my Little Putrid Imps hehehehe