Hellboy Commander Deck · 100 Proxy Cards · MTG EDH · Right Hand of Doom

A fully custom Hellboy Magic proxy Commander deck, ready to play straight out of the envelope: 100 proxy cards with original artworks, built around a man who was summoned to end the world and has spent sixty years refusing to. This is a Rakdos (black-red) deck led by Hellboy, the Beast of the Apocalypse.

Why Rakdos? Black is the prophecy — Rasputin, the occult cell, the Ogdru Jahad asleep in their crystals, the dead who will not stay filed. It is the half of the world that already knows how this ends. Red is the man himself: a fist, a revolver the size of a cat, Liz Sherman setting a room on fire because she is frightened. Red is the part that refuses. The deck is those two colours arguing with each other on a clock.

Targeted power level: Bracket 4 — two infinite combos, an indestructible Equipment that cannot be answered, and the largest single payoff in the line: seven 7/7 fliers off one trigger.

Deck Strategy

The whole deck is one question, asked again every single turn: are you still trying to reach seven?

The Right Hand of Doom is the original mechanic and it is a card, not a keyword. A legendary Equipment for {2} that is indestructible and cannot be enchanted, exiled or gained control of by your opponents — you are stuck with it, exactly as he is. The equipped creature gets trample and +1/+1 for each apocalypse counter on The Right Hand of Doom, and whenever it deals combat damage to a player another counter goes on. Hellboy attaches it to himself for free at the beginning of combat on your turn. Then the line everything else in the box is written around: when the seventh apocalypse counter is put on The Right Hand of Doom, remove them all and create seven 7/7 black and red Ogdru Jahad Dragon creature tokens with flying and trample.

The catch is on the enchantment that names them. The Ogdru Jahad, Seven Who Are One puts a doom counter on each Ogdru Jahad you control at the beginning of your upkeep, and the player to your left gains control of each Ogdru Jahad with three or more doom counters on it. You get roughly two turns as the strongest thing anyone at that table has ever seen, and then you have personally armed your neighbour with dragons. The apocalypse does not take orders. That is the deck.

• File them down — the second mechanic, and the reason this deck exists. Half the B.P.R.D. carries a version of remove an apocalypse counter from The Right Hand of Doom: Hellboy himself for {1}{R} and +2/+0, Abe Sapien for {1}{B} and a card, the Belt Sander for {1} and a tap, Excalibur on every attack, the Bureau itself for a discard. No other deck in this line can dismantle its own win condition on purpose, on turn six, because the character would.
• The prophecy cards scale — a dozen permanents and spells read the counter that is on the Hand at that moment. Behemoth costs {1} less for each one and sweeps the board on arrival, Liz Sherman taps to throw damage equal to the number remaining, The Storm Is Coming deals twice the count divided as you choose and then clears the Hand, and Every Book Says the Same Thing casts a card off the top for free if it costs no more than the count. Backing away from seven is a genuine cost, which is what keeps the decision honest at both ends.
• The cast — Liz Sherman, Abe Sapien, Professor Bruttenholm, Johann Kraus, Roger the Homunculus, Kate Corrigan, Lobster Johnson, Sir Edward Grey, Alice Monaghan and the Visitor, against Grigori Rasputin, Karl Ruprecht Kroenen, Ilsa Haupstein, Herman von Klempt, Nimue the Blood Queen, Sammael, Baba Yaga, Hecate, the Gruagach, the Crooked Man, Varvara, Behemoth and the Conqueror Worm.
• Removal is a fist first — Right Cross and Punch It Until It Stops turn an equipped creature into the removal spell, Silver, Water and White Oak and Aw, Crap answer the occult half of the table, the Iron Maiden converts a body into two counters and a card, and the Crystal Prison exiles a creature until somebody breaks the glass. The equipment package is the Samaritan, Big Baby, Excalibur, the Doom Chain and the Belt Sander.
• Two infinite combos. Liz Sherman + The Right Hand of Doom: Liz taps and removes an apocalypse counter to deal damage equal to the number still on the Hand — at six counters that is a six-damage instant that also walks you back off the ledge, and Hellboy's next connection puts the counter straight back on, so the same trigger fuels the fire and the brake. Roger the Homunculus + The Conqueror Worm: the Worm removes an apocalypse counter and grows whenever another creature you control dies, and Roger returns from your graveyard to the battlefield whenever a counter is removed — so with a sacrifice outlet like the Iron Maiden or the Burnt Russian Church, Roger dies, the Worm drains a counter and grows, Roger walks back, and the loop keeps draining the number you were frightened of.

Thirty-five lands, and they are the case files rather than a mana base: B.P.R.D. Headquarters in Connecticut, the Church on the Beach, Cavendish Hall, Hunte Castle, the Bog of Lough Leane, the Ragna Rok Test Site, the Crystal Field Beyond Pluto, the Waiting Room in Hell, the Archive Sub-Level Four, the Burnt Russian Church, the Docks 1937, the Village That Burned, the Undersea Trench, Baba Yaga's Hut, the Vatican Vault, the Frozen Yard, the Ruined Monastery, the Field Office, the Long Corridor and the Circle Drawn in Chalk, over eight Swamps and seven Mountains. Four tokens — Ogdru Jahad, Hound Demon, Homunculus and Frog Horror — come in the box. Average mana value 3.29, built to have the Hand equipped by turn four and the decision in front of you by turn six.