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Shadow the Hedgehog is one of the featured characters inMagic: The Gathering’scrossover set with the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Shadow comes in a Secret Lair drop alongside six other new-to-Magic cards featuring other characters from the Sonic franchise. As a card, Shadow the Hedgehog is very powerful, with one of the best effects ever put on a card.
For a Shadow the Hedgehog Commander deck, you’ll be playing a ton of cards with haste as Shadow’s effect plays with that alongside having a sub-Treasure theme to make all your spells unable to be interacted with. It’s a fantastic commander if you like making creature copies and drawing cards.
x8 Mountain
Scene of the Crime
x6 Swamp
Treasure Vault
Vault of Whispers
The decklistcontains one planeswalker, 34 creatures, five sorceries, four instants, 14 artifacts, seven enchantments,and34 lands. The deck is heavily creature-focused, with the other permanentseither being Treasure token generatorsor mana rocks to make your spells unable to be interacted with.
Key Cards
Shadow The Hedgehog
Shadow the Hedgehog is easily the best card in the deck, and one you always have access to. It turnsany creature with haste dying into card draw, which is something many cards that create token copies do as they are sacrificed at the end step.
The primary strength of Shadow comes from its chaos control ability. Ifany spell uses mana from an artifact, it has a split second. Split second essentially makes a spell unable to be interacted with, asno one can cast spells or use abilities if that spell is on the stack.
You want to use your mana from artifacts on your most important spells to verify they resolve. It’s often better to wait to cast them until you know you can cast them with split second.
Knuckles The Echidna
Knuckles the Echidna acts as botha way to generate extra Treasure tokens and as a win condition. Knuckles turns all your creatures that deal damage into Treasure tokens, which can be combined with Shadow’s effect to keep your future spells gaining split second. If a creature has double strike,it’ll make two Treasures instead of one.
There are a ton of artifacts in the deck, includingmana rocks, artifact creatures, and artifact lands. All of these, along with how many Treasure tokens you can create, make it trivial toreach the 30 artifact threshold you need to win the gamewith Knuckles' Treasure Hunter effect.
Rain Of Riches
The decklist has a ton of different ways to create Treasure tokens, including Rain of Riches itself. Rain of Richesturns your first spell you cast using mana from Treasure into one with cascade. This is an easy way to get a two-for-one with any spell.
Rain of Riches gives your first spellthat uses Treasure to castcascade, not your first spell in general. So if you want to cast a big spell with cascade but have another, smaller spell to play first, make sure to not use any Treasure on the small spell.
Luckily, there are very few whiffs the deck can hit with cascade. Theonly major whiff would be a board wipe, which there are only a few of. Most of the time, you’ll cascade into another permanent thanks to the decklist’s low non-permanent spell count.
Hellkite Tyrant
Hellkite Tyrant is a very versatile card, as itlets you get more mana rocks to use with Shadow’s effect and can win you the game with its alternate win condition. You do need to deal combat damage to steal artifacts, but with its flying and trample, this is trivially done and will trigger even if just one damage gets through.
With how much ramping the deck can do, you can get Hellkite Tyrant on the battlefield early. Youwant Hellkite Tyrant on the battlefield as soon as you can, as themore mana rocks you steal, the more spells you can cast without fear if Shadow is on the battlefield.
How To Play The Deck
General Game Plan
A Shadow the Hedgehog Commander deckis constantly making token creatures with haste that sacrifice themselves, drawing you cards with Shadow’s effect. It is very hard for your opponents to interact with, as most of your spells will have split second thanks to Shadow’s chaos control ability.
The best permanents are the ones that create a token every turn. Urabrask’s Forge, Lagomos, Hand of Hatred, and Rite of the Raging Storm are all great for this and will help you to draw through your deck with Shadow on the battlefield.
The deck has a massive focus on Treasure tokens, as these can be used in tandem with chaos control to make spells have split second. Rakdos (black/red) is a color that needs to use differentramp tools to make mana fast, andTreasure is the main way to do that.Unlike other Rakdos decks,Shadow can use these Treasures as both utility and as a win condition.
Youalways want to use at least one mana from an artifact source when casting a spell. Shadow’s chaos control triggers so long as at least one mana was spent from an artifact. Shadow’s effectisn’t once per turn, so you want to only cast spells when you have an artifact to tap for them, so no opponent can interact with it and it’ll always resolve.
Win Condition And Flaws
Theprimary win condition of the deck is winning through combat. Many of the cards that create tokens create powerful or evasive ones, and with creatures making up the majority of the deck, you’ll be dwindling life totals down all throughout. Thesecondary win conditions are winning through alternate win conditions.
All of Knuckles the Echidna, Hellkite Tyrant, and Revel in Richesautomatically win the game if you have a certain number of artifacts(with Revel in Riches requiring specifically Treasure tokens). Hitting the threshold needed to win with these is very easy, and you’ll likely find yourself winning with these permanents over combat if you may’t break through defenses.
Thebiggest downside of the deck is its heavy focus on creatures. The majority of the deck consists of creatures, soit is very susceptible to board wipes. It can be hard to come back from one, as Rakdos doesn’t have many great card draw spells.Shadow’s card draw effect can help you to stabilize quicker, but if Shadow is removed first, it can be an uphill battle.
