As summer heats up I decided this week I'd build a burn deck around an uncommon legend from the Marvel Super Heroes expansion set. Today's subject has me thinking of Rakdos Commanders like Mogis, God of Slaughter, Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls, and The Lord of Pain. I'll be on mono-Red so it seems fitting to go with a burn theme for this deck, with cards that push out direct damage to my opponents. All of that is familiar territory for me as a deckbuilder.

The only thing giving me pause is that I'm unclear on how a burn deck fits thematically with a Legendary Human Archer Hero.

Kate Bishop was the third character and first woman to take the Hawkeye name, after Clint Barton of the Avengers and Wyatt McDonald of the Squadron Supreme. She's portrayed by Hailee Steinfeld in the 2021 Disney+ miniseries Hawkeye. That's all well and good, but in my limited research I couldn't figure out why that character would have the abilities on this card.

I'm pretty sure a Marvel fan could explain it to me, but in this case it doesn't really matter. What matters is what's on the Magic card I'm building around.

Hawkeye, Young Avenger is a 2/4 with Reach and a very interesting ability. If a source I control would deal noncombat damage to an opponent or a permanent an opponent controls, instead it deals that much damage plus X, where X is Hawkeye's power.

This is a card where the intrigue isn't in finding a new and surprising direction to take it. The plan is simple and obvious - pump up Hawkeye and kill the table with some seriously amped-up noncombat damage. The fun is in seeing how powerful I can make this deck.

Picking my Pingers

The first thing I need to do is set up this deck to be able to push out a lot of ping damage. Pingers in Magic: The Gathering are traditionally Creatures that you can tap to hit a target for one damage. Since Commander is a multiplayer format, I'm much more interested in ways to push out damage to all of my opponents at once. It's just more efficient that way, and you don't win until everyone else is dead.

My biggest decision was whether to lean into Instants and Sorceries or not. Running a ton of pump spells could open up room to play cards like Guttersnipe, Electrostatic Field, Thermo-Alchemist and Unruly Catapult. I am running a few Instant and Sorcery spells but I ended up leaning heavily on Artifacts for Equipment and mana rocks. I ended up favoring cards that push out damage when playing noncreature spells, not just Instants and Sorceries.

Kessig Flamebreather is a Human Shaman from Innistrad: Crimson Vow, with a pretty sweet trigger Red ability. Whenever I cast a noncreature spell it will deal one damage to each opponent. With Hawkeye, Young Avenger under my control, that one damage will become three damage, and more if I've found a way to pump her up.

Firespitter Whelp gives me the same ability on a 2/2 Flying Dragon, and I always like to have a few Flyers in a deck.

Weftstalker Ardent is an enter the battlefield pinger that will push out 1 damage to each opponent whenever another Creature or Artifact I control enters play. It has the option of being cast for its warp cost of , after which I'll exile it at the beginning of the next end step and I can cast it for its normal casting cost on a later turn.

That's unlikely to come up, but it's a nice option in case I'm running short on mana.

I'm running Impact Tremors and Purphoros, God of the Forge as additional ways to push out damage from Creatures entering under my control. I'm not running a ton of Creatures so I threw in Hordeling Outburst, Tilonalli's Summoner, and Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs as ways to generate Creature tokens.

Hawkeye's ability isn't symmetrical, so if I want to maximize the ways I can push out damage, I can run cards that push out damage to everyone without worrying too much about my own life total. Hawkeye should make sure that my tablemates are suffering way more than I might be.

Roiling Vortex and Sulfuric Vortex are Enchantments that will push out damage on each player's upkeep. The former pushes out one damage and the latter pushes out two. Roiling Vortex has the added ability that whenever a player casts a spell, if no mana was spent to cast that spell, it will deal five damage to them.

For just Roiling Vortex will let me prevent my opponents from gaining life until end of turn, while Sulfuric Vortex just keeps all players from gaining life. Redundancy is important in a singleton, 100 card format, so both of these cards have a place in today's brew.

Punishing players for just playing the game is part of what this deck wants to do. Manabarbs will ping a player for one damage whenever they tap a Land for mana. I'm also running Tunneling Geopede, an Insect that has a Landfall trigger that will push out one damage to each opponent whenever a Land enters play under my control. I'm not expecting to win a game by pairing this and Myriad Landscape, but in the right circumstances it could happen.

Defiler of Instinct is a Phyrexian Kavu that brings a lot to the table for four mana. This 4/4 has First Strike and will let me pay two life instead of a in the casting cost of my Red permanent spells. That's actually a decent little cost Reduction, but this card is in the list because whenever I cast a Red permanent spell, Defiler of Instinct will deal one damage to any target. I'm unlikely to be storming off and killing the table, but every little bit helps.

I'm running a pretty wide variety of pingers in this deck and it's got me a little nervous that my Creature count is too low. I'm used to playing Green decks with over two dozen Creatures, but I think this list would at least be a decent starting point. It's unlikely anyone will decide I have to die first for the sin of pushing out a little ping damage in the early game.

Mountains of out Molehills

This is a Red deck so please understand that I'm not actually creating Lands out of whatever a molehill might be in Magic. What I am going to try to do is take my little bits of ping damage and make them much bigger.

The way I ended up building Hawkeye was to run a bunch of traditional Voltron Equipment that can give a significant boost to her power. Hero's Blade will equip to her automatically when it enters play, and gives a +3/+2 boost. Chainsaw will get rev counters when Creatures die, and will give +X/+0 where X is the number of rev counters it has.

The real pump comes from cards like Strata Scythe, Blackblade Reforged, and Excalibur, Sword of Eden. Excalibur gives a cool +10/+0, and the other two pump the equipped Creature based upon Land counts. Strata Scythe has me exile a Land from my library and will pump based upon the number of Lands in play with the exiled Land's name. Blackblade Reforged just pumps based upon the number of Lands I control.

While I didn't load up on traditional pump spells that give a Creature a +3 or even +4 boost to their power, I did choose to include a very specific kind of power boost. Bulk Up and Unleash Fury are both two mana Instants that double the power of target Creature until end of turn, and Bulk Up can be cast out of my Graveyard for its Flashback cost of . Fatal Frenzy is also in the list and will give target Creature Trample and +X/+0 where X is its power, but I'll have to sacrifice it at end of turn.

Power doublers aren't a big deal if I've just got Hawkeye in play as a 2 power Human Archer Hero. Doubling Hawkeye's power once is nice but doing it more than once is where things get scary. Junk Jet is a two mana Equipment that creates a Junk token when it enters play. When it's equipped I can pay 3 mana and sacrifice another Artifact to double equipped Creature's power until end of turn.

Pyrohemia is an Enchantment that will let me pay to deal 1 damage to each Creature and player. Hawkeye will boost that damage if it's to an opponent or an opponent's Creature. If we want to do the math on killing the table if everyone is at 40 life, it's pretty simple. With Excalibur, Sword of Eden attached, Hawkeye will have 12 power. Four activations of Pyrohemia will kill the table. If I've doubled her power, it will only take two activations, and if I've quadrupled her power I'll just pay to win the game even if everyone is still at 40 life.

Great Power, Great Responsibility

This list is going to need tuning but this is a great starting point for a Marvel Super Heroes burn deck. You could easily shift the emphasis towards a reliance on Instants and Sorcery spells, or you could load up on Creatures and turn it into an Impact Tremors deck. This list has a nice assortment of damage sources and I enjoy that kind of variety in my games.

It's worth noting that you could easily create a situation where players literally can't play their decks for fear of just killing themselves. Some might find that hilarious, and some might think it's incredibly annoying, but it's something to be mindful of. If you've got a 20 power Hawkeye with Hexproof and a Rampaging Ferocidon or Razorkin Needlehead in play, your buddies may find themselves yearning for the sweet release of death. It's just not fun to not be able to play your deck, but that is what a Prison deck does - it limits your tablemates' options until you can win the game.

Hawkeye, Young Avenger | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Hawkeye, Young Avenger

• Creatures (17)
• 1 Brash Taunter
• 1 Defiler of Instinct
• 1 Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest
• 1 Firespitter Whelp
• 1 Human Torch, Johnny Storm
• 1 Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
• 1 Kessig Flamebreather
• 1 Neheb, the Eternal
• 1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1 Queen Brahne
• 1 Rampaging Ferocidon
• 1 Razorkin Needlehead
• 1 Reckless Fireweaver
• 1 Thor, God of Thunder
• 1 Tilonalli's Summoner
• 1 Tunneling Geopede
• 1 Weftstalker Ardent

• Instants (9)
• 1 Abrade
• 1 Bulk Up
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Fatal Frenzy
• 1 Risk Factor
• 1 Tibalt's Trickery
• 1 Unleash Fury
• 1 Untimely Malfunction
• 1 Wild Magic Surge

• Sorceries (14)
• 1 Blasphemous Act
• 1 Fiery Confluence
• 1 Hordeling Outburst
• 1 Mana Geyser
• 1 Reforge the Soul
• 1 Tempt with Vengeance
• 1 Descent into Avernus
• 1 Impact Tremors
• 1 Manabarbs
• 1 Pyrohemia
• 1 Roiling Vortex
• 1 Spellshock
• 1 Sulfuric Vortex
• 1 Valakut Exploration

• Artifacts (21)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Blackblade Reforged
• 1 Chainsaw
• 1 Conqueror's Flail
• 1 Endless Atlas
• 1 Excalibur, Sword of Eden
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Hawkeye's Bow
• 1 Hero's Blade
• 1 Junk Jet
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mask of Avacyn
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Nyx Lotus
• 1 Pyromancer's Goggles
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Staff of Nin
• 1 Strata Scythe
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Two-Handed Axe

• Lands (38)
• 33 Mountain
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Spinerock Knoll
• 1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

Buy This Deck Export text

To power this list down I think you'd drop out some of the ways to pump up Hawkeye, as those are how you're going to be killing tables out of nowhere. To be fair, a deck like this isn't really killing a table out of nowhere, but if someone isn't familiar with how quickly some decks can push out direct damage, they might find it overwhelming. I think it's entirely possible Hawkeye can play a fair Bracket 2 game, but it might feel more at home in Bracket 3 if you've tuned it up.

To play in Bracket 3 tables and maybe even push up into Bracket 4, you'll want to streamline your wincons and focus on getting lethal damage as quickly as possible. My random assortment of damage sources probably isn't going to cut it.

In higher Bracket play you want to know exactly where you're going and how you're getting there. This list would probably start to feel even more like a combo deck, with very specific combinations of cards you're digging for. I don't think Hawkeye will see play in cEDH, but in high Bracket 3 and maybe even low Bracket 4 you should be able to win the occasional game.

Final Thoughts

I fondly remember my old Purphoros, God of the Forge deck from about a decade ago, and Hawkeye, Young Avenger is going to bring the same kind of gameplay experience. You're not going to be as focused on attacking as much as with some decks. Whether you are aggressively pushing out Creatures and Creature tokens to ping everyone to death, or you are passively setting up a prison of pingers that will kill people for the sin of playing a Creature or tapping a Land, these decks are really fun and surprisingly effective.

Your mileage will vary, as with any deck, and you'll want to tweak this list to fit your playstyle and the power of the pods you play in. If you play with folks who run loads of interaction and have aggressive decks, you may get killed before you get your gameplan online. A lower Creature count means you're more vulnerable to fast aggro decks, but that's also a power level issue. Decks that kill folks on turn 5 or even 6 might be too much for Hawkeye, Young Avenger.

One of the things I've been doing in recent years is taking existing decks and converting them to run under new Commanders. I had a Muxus, Goblin Grandee deck for a while and I converted that a few times, eventually keeping it together as a Smellerbee, Rebel Fighter Goblins deck. I could see taking that list and converting it to be a Hawkeye, Young Avenger list with a few tweaks and maybe a Roiling Vortex and Sulfuric Vortex thrown in for good measure.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!