Hollow One in Aggro Decks: Fast Wins Ahead

Hollow One artwork from Hour of Devastation MTG card art

Image courtesy of Scryfall.com

Hollow One and the Aggro Playstyle

There’s a certain thrill to slammed faces and fast tempo in Magic: The Gathering, and Hollow One embodies that rush in a delightfully stubborn way. This rare artifact creature from Hour of Devastation—an unassuming 5-mana investment that resolves into a 4/4 body—takes a different path to aggression: it punishes passive planning and rewards a hand that happily discards and cycles its way to speed. With no color requirement, Hollow One sits squarely in colorless territory, but its best friends are the red and black tools that help you churn through cards and squeeze every last drop of value from the turn you cast it. 🧙‍♂️🔥

At the core, Hollow One is a bargain-driven beater. Its mana cost is {5}, but “This spell costs {2} less to cast for each card you’ve cycled or discarded this turn,” and its built-in cycling ability—“Cycling {2}” (pay {2}, discard this card: Draw a card)—means you’re not just paying for a creature; you’re paying for a momentum engine. The more you cycle or discard that same turn, the cheaper Hollow One becomes. That flavor of cost-reduction is exactly the kind of tempo play that punishes clunky hands and rewards a deck that’s happy to dump cards for fuel. The 4/4 body hits hard and often comes down faster than opponents expect, turning every attack into a calculated pressure test. Flavor text reminds us that the Hollow One is the embodiment of yearning—forever drifting the deserts to find what had once made it whole—an evocative mirror to decks that chase its own missing pieces with every draw. ✨

So how do you design an aggressive approach around Hollow One? The key lies in building a hand-fed engine: cards that cycle for value, cards that discard for fuel, and threats that keep the pressure steady even as you redraw. The mana curve becomes less about a strict sequence and more about a rhythm—play a few cheap or free discard outlets, press with Hollow One as soon as you can cheaply cast it, and then keep the board manageable with fast, repeated threats. Because Hollow One is colorless, it slots into mono-red, mono-black, or even some offbeat red-black hybrids where the.laws of tempo and value align. 🧲🎯

Velocity through cycling: Cards that cycle provide card advantage while also contributing to Hollow One’s discount. Each card cycled on the same turn nudges the cost down, so you’re rewarded for looping through your deck and drawing into your next attacker.
Discard outlets as drill-sergeants: Discard effects—whether via direct discards or redraws—fuel the cost reduction. In an aggressive shell, you want to feed Hollow One with discarded cards to slash its price, then push in for decisive damage while your opponent tries to stabilize.
Sturdy statline, flexible timing: Hollow One’s 4/4 body isn’t the most fragile in a red-capable metagame, but the real trick is how you cast it. If you can line up a discount of 3–4 cards in a turn, you may pay 0 mana and drop a 4/4 on turn 3 or 4, which is enough to swing widely enough to threaten a game-ending attack the following turn.
Risk and reward: If your plan stalls—if you draw poorly or fail to trigger enough reductions—Hollow One sits as a pricey 5-drop with a decent body. That’s a real risk in aggressive builds, so include backup plans and cheap threats to keep the pressure consistent.

Design-wise, Hollow One is a textbook example of how MTG can pair a big, satisfying body with a self-contained cost-reduction engine. Its rarity and the Hour of Devastation flavor tie it to a desert-scale story of longing and resilience, while its pure mechanical logic makes it a go-to for players who love tempo and payoff. The blank canvas of its color identity also invites creative shell-building: you’re not bound to a single color wheel, and that flexibility is a badge of honor for budget-conscious aggro lists. 💎⚔️

Practical table consideration: when assembling a Hollow One-focused aggro deck, you’ll want to prioritize enough cycling and discard density to reliably reach the discounted cost. Think of it as a mini-pipeline—draw, discard or cycle, rinse, repeat, and cast Hollow One for as low as possible. Then push with the 4/4 body while your opponent scrambles to find answers. In the heat of a tournament, those turns where you drop Hollow One on turn 3 or 4 can feel like a miniature victory lap, especially when you’ve already taxed your opponent’s resources with repeated cycles and discards. 🧙‍♂️🔥

Stat-wise, Hollow One’s specific numbers—5 mana, 4/4, cycling cost {2}—ground the card in a clear tactical space. It’s a rare artifact creature in Hour of Devastation, fully compatible with both modern and legacy formats where aggressive, cyclical pressure is prized. The art by Anthony Palumbo captures a sense of stoic, wind-scourged resilience that mirrors the deck’s mindset: you keep pushing forward, regardless of the terrain, until your foe is overwhelmed by a seemingly inexhaustible stream of threats. The card’s design continues to spark discussions about how to balance cost-reduction mechanics with fair competition, and it remains a favorite for players who enjoy turning discarded cards into battlefield dominance. 🎨

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