With the recent full reveal of the Magic: The Gathering Streets of New Capenna set, we got a look at a big mechanic that is returning to the game – Hideaway – fifteen years after it was first used!
Having last seen play in Modern Horizons, how will Hideaway factor into this set and for those new to the game, what exactly does it do? Here’s everything you need to know!
What is Hideaway?
Hideaway is an MTG keyword mechanic that will allow you to search through the top of your deck, find a card, then activate the card if you meet certain conditions.
The card that was showcased during the Streets of New Capenna live stream was Wiretapping. This card has ‘Hideaway 5’ meaning you look at the top five cards of your library and exile one, placing the remaining cards on the bottom of your library in random order.
To access this exiled card, you must be holding nine cards in your hand following the draw phase. Wiretapping allows you to draw an additional card during this phase so provided you start your turn with seven cards in hand, the card exiled by Hideaway will activate without you paying its mana cost.
It’s a very useful mechanic in MTG if you want to look at the top of your deck and possibly activate a big card for no cost. The downside is that if you exile a card and fail to activate it, you’ve simply wasted a useful card from your deck.
Best Hideaway Cards
Hideaway as a mechanic has a potential to be incredibly powerful. For this reason, the requirements to get your free spells off the mechanic tend to be pretty strict. For that reason, Hideaway cards that are relatively easy to activate with some help tend to be pretty powerful.
Honestly, there aren’t a ton of different Hideaway cards currently available in MTG right now. To be precise, only 12 Hideaway cards currently exist in MTG according to Gatherer. Of these, Fight Rigging is definitely the most promising one.
Not only is Fight Rigging just a decent card for three mana in many decks, but activating its Hideaway ability is rather easy. All you need to do is control a creature with a Power of seven or greater.
At the beginning of combat, Fight Rigging puts a +1/+1 counter on a target creature. Following this, it checks to see if you have any creatures with seven or more power. This means that, should Fight Rigging get the opportunity to target a six Power creature with its counter ability, you’ll get to cast your spell.
There just happens to be a six power creature in the same set as Fight Rigging that only costs three mana: Shakedown Heavy. This allows you to start cheating in absurd spells as early as turn three like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn!
Read More: Best MTG Arena Decks!
