The Original Decklist

Here is the list Ken Yukuhiro played in that Modern era:

But in August 26, 2019 they decided to ban 《Faithless Looting》 so the deck disappeared…

Until now! In Theros Beyond Death Wizards of the Coast printed 《Ox of Agonas》.

《Ox of Agonas》 is one of the most important cards in this renovated archetype. It’s also worth to mention the other card that made this deck viable: 《Seasoned Pyromancer》 from Modern Horizons.

Core of the Deck

Now I’m going to explain you the most important cards that you should be playing in your Hollow One deck and after this I will show you different versions of the deck.

Discard Enablers

Besides helping us casting a 《Hollow One》 (or more!) for free in turn one or two, these are the cards that help us to put 《Flamewake Phoenix》 or 《Ox of Agonas》 in to the graveyard while we’re getting advantage. It’s true that 《Burning Inquiry》 and 《Goblin Lore》‘s abilities are a little bit random but when your deck is built to get advantage from them then they are not that random!

Value Creatures

With these creatures we are going to get advantage of the other cards I named before. 《Flameblade Adept》 is a good aggro card that pushes planeswalkers or helps us to take down our opponent’s life total while we develop our gameplan. 《Street Wraith》 helps us to cast 《Hollow One》 and also acts as another card in our graveyard for 《Ox of Agonas》 and 《Flamewake Phoenix》 comes back with 《Hollow One》 and 《Ox of Agonas》 help!

Big Creatures

These are the finishers of the deck. 《Hollow One》 can enter the battlefield as fast as turn one, sometimes alone, sometimes with more copies of him. While 《Ox of Agonas》 is a more mid-late game oriented card. We can play it as soon as turn three and get three fresh cards and return some 《Flamewake Phoenix》 from our graveyard and it also helps us to cast the 《Hollow One》s we draw with it!

Remove Spells

I don’t think I need to explain too much about this card, early removal, and it help us to deal the last three damage to our opponent!

Now let’s take a look of the new versions of Hollow One:

Mono Red Eldrazi Conscription Hollow One

First of all I’m going to talk about the spicy list that Saffron Olive posted on MTGGoldfish, I took it made a few changes and ended with this:

(Editor’s Note: Magic Online sometimes doesn’t recognize 《Dragon’s Claw》 so please check it after downloading.)

As you can notice, there are a few cards that are not common. 《Storm Herald》 and 《Eldrazi Conscription》 is a very nice synergy that works pretty good with all the cards that allow to put 《Eldrazi Conscription》 into the graveyard.

This deck is pretty nice but I struggled at some points where I didn’t have a way to discard 《Eldrazi Conscription》. Thus I decided to cut the sweet 《Storm Herald》 + 《Eldrazi Conscription》 package and tried next version.

UR Hollow One

(Editor’s Note: Magic Online sometimes doesn’t recognize 《Dragon’s Claw》 so please check it after downloading.)

This is the first version with blue that I tried, deck felt pretty good and 《Izzet Charm》 was one of the cards I was looking for. But cards like 《Bazaar Trademage》 were not good enough with only three 《Ox of Agonas》, so I tried a version with four 《Ox of Agonas》 and it was much better but 《Bazaar Trademage》 had the same problem. It was a three drop that needed a 《Hollow One》 or an 《Ox of Agonas》 to be good so I tried a version without it and with more 《Seasoned Pyromancer》 and 《Cathartic Reunion》 and it was much better.

UR Hollow One Updated Version

(Editor’s Note: Magic Online sometimes doesn’t recognize 《Dragon’s Claw》 so please check it after downloading.)

Here is where I ended with the UR version, the main is the same with the few changes I wrote before, 《Seasoned Pyromancer》 and the fourth 《Ox of Agonas》 are pretty good and I think having 《Izzet Charm》 in our deck we want as much as Oxes as we can.

Another interesting thing about playing blue cards is having access to them in our sideboard. I decided to play 《Ashiok, Dream Render》 and 《Aether Gust》 because there are lots of 《Primeval Titan》 decks lately so they both were good additions. If you expect lots of blue decks you can consider swapping cards for a few copies of 《Mystical Dispute》.

BR Hollow One

(Editor’s Note: Magic Online sometimes doesn’t recognize 《Dragon’s Claw》 so please check it after downloading.)

This is the list I like the most and it is also the closest one to the old BR Hollow One as we have《Bloodghast》 and big payoffs in the form of 《Ox of Agonas》 and 《Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger》 instead of 《Tasigur, the Golden Fang》 and 《Gurmag Angler》.

You can see all the new finishers have more synergy than the old ones, I mean, when we used to play 《Gurmag Angler》 or 《Tasigur, the Golden Fang》 we wanted them in our hands to play them after a 《Burning Inquiry》 or 《Goblin Lore》, now we can discard and play them from the graveyard. Cards like 《Rest in Peace》 or 《Leyline of the Void》 are still big problem for the deck, but since people are not playing 《Rest in Peace》 now this deck might be a very good choice.

Having access to black cards also helps us in matchups like Humans or another aggro decks with cards like 《Fatal Push》 and 《Collective Brutality》 in our sideboard. 《Fatal Push》 is a very good removal and 《Collective Brutality》 allows us to discard something while we are removing a creature or discarding something from our opponent’s hand.

Since we are playing 《Unearth》 you can replace some cards like 《Bloodghast》 for a few copies of 《Lightning Skelemental》 since it is a pretty broken synergy!

Amulet Titan

Against Amulet Titan

Out

In

This matchup doesn’t seem very good, they have more blockers now and we can’t beat a resolved 《Primeval Titan》 so the idea is to go fast or have 《Blood Moon》. Keep in mind that 《Flameblade Adept》 and 《Burning Inquiry》 are your best friends in this matchup. I side out 《Unearth》 since it can be countered by 《Bojuka Bog》 and the cycling is too narrow.

Mono Red Prowess

Against Mono Red Prowess

Out

In

It’s hard for them to win two games against us with all the sideboard cards we have against them. 《Dragon’s Claw》 gives us time to find the 《Seasoned Pyromancer》 or the 《Ox of Agonas》 to end the game quickly. Remember they’re supposed to side in 《Abrade》 for 《Hollow One》 so try to bite them to use it before you can play the 《Dragon’s Claw》. I side out 《Bloodghast》 since it doesn’t block and 《Street Wraith》 because I don’t want to lose life against an aggro deck.

Bant Snow-Blade

Against Bant Snow-Blade

Out

In

This matchup is tricky, I tried to side in 《Shenanigans》 but it was not good overall since they can out grind you with cards like 《Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath》, 《Ice-Fang Coatl》 and not just with 《Stoneforge Mystic》. Maybe 《Leyline of the Void》 is good against them or even 《Fatal Push》.

I think 《Unearth》 is not good because they play 《Path to Exile》 and I like 《Collective Brutality》 since it acts like a discard spell, remove spell and it helps to reduce opponent’s life total. If you played this matchup and you found the correct way to approach it, let me know here or Twitter!

Urza Variants

Against UB Version

Against UB Urza

Out

In

Against UG Version

Against UG Urza

Out

In

This is the kind of matchup where we don’t want 《Burning Inquiry》, since even if it is UB Urza or UG Urza they have a bunch of cards that work from the graveyard. Against the UG version you can side in 《Fatal Push》 for 《Emry, Lurker of the Loch》 and 《Ice-Fang Coatl》. Remember they can steal 《Flameblade Adept》 with 《Archmage’s Charm》, keep that in mind if you try to go off with it and 《Goblin Lore》.

Eldrazi Tron

Against Eldrazi Tron

Out

In

Close matchup, 《Karn, the Great Creator》 is a problem if it comes into play early, and 《Chalice of the Void》 can be painful if we’re on the draw. Besides that, 《Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger》 is bigger than their creatures and 《Ox of Agonas》 is a party too. If you can 《Unearth》 a 《Flameblade Adept》 just do it because the card is pretty good attacking 《Karn, the Great Creator》.

Since they also play 《Leyline of the Void》 I tend to side out one of each big creatures and hope they just have 《Grafdigger’s Cage》 so we can destroy them with 《Shenanigans》.

《Death’s Shadow》 Variants

Against Death’s Shadow Variants

Out

In

Since most of the 《Death’s Shadow》 variants play 《Traverse the Ulvenwald》, 《Snapcaster Mage》 or 《Gurmag Angler》 I think the first card I want to cut is 《Burning Inquiry》. Against Shadow and Jund I want to play the long grindy game with 《Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger》 and 《Ox of Agonas》, both cards are incredibly good against them, also 《Seasoned Pyromancer》 is pretty good as a topdeck war card.

《Blood Moon》 is good against both versions of Shadow since they just play one or two basic lands. About 《Leyline of the Void》, I can’t tell you how good it is against 《Traverse the Ulvenwald》 versions, but against Grixis Shadow it’s pretty good because they play 《Gurmag Angler》 and 《Snapcaster Mage》, also it makes 《Thought Scour》 bad because they probably don’t want to target us!

If you face Four Color Shadow you can also side in 《Fatal Push》 since all of their creatures are CMC two or less (《Tarmogoyf》 and 《Death’s Shadow》).

Jund

Against Jund

Out

In

Jund is more or less like Shadow variants, with the difference we don’t want 《Leyline of the Void》 against them. We want cards like 《Fatal Push》 against 《Scavenging Ooze》 or 《Tarmogoyf》, and it’s also good in the late game against 《Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger》.

The game plan is mostly the same as against Shadow, try to grind them out with 《Ox of Agonas》 and 《Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger》.