The Hippodrome MTG Card
2009-09-04 - Number 16
2018-12-25 - Number 36
| Card sets | Released in 2 setsSee all |
| Rarity | Common |
| Type | Plane — Segovia |
Text of card
All creatures get -5/-0. Whenever you roll chaos, you may destroy target creature if its power is 0 or less.
Cards like The Hippodrome
The Hippodrome, an elusive gem within the world of Magic: The Gathering, holds an unusual place among land cards. It shares qualities with cards like Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, another land that imposes a cost for creatures to remain on the battlefield. While The Tabernacle demands a mana payment to keep creatures around, The Hippodrome has a different requirement. It asks for each player to sacrifice a creature during the upkeep if they control three or more creatures. This intriguing rule fosters a restricted battlefield, encouraging a defensive playstyle.
Glacial Chasm is another land card that alters the combat dynamic by prohibiting creatures from attacking you. Unlike The Hippodrome, Glacial Chasm also prevents all damage that would be dealt to you, taking the idea of protection even further. Although, it comes with a gradually increasing upkeep cost that can quickly become detrimental. In this comparison, The Hippodrome’s impact is more subtle yet can be equally strategic in the right deck, especially since it doesn’t directly impact your life total.
Overall, The Hippodrome stands out as a unique tactical piece in MTG. It enforces a minimalist board state, which can be key to disrupting opponents or complementing a strategy built around control and precision.
Cards similar to The Hippodrome by color, type and mana cost
Card Pros
Card Advantage: Enables you to pull ahead by potentially drawing additional cards each turn, crucial for outpacing opponents in longer matches.
Resource Acceleration: Offers an uptick in mana resources, facilitating larger plays or multiple spell casting in a single turn, enhancing your board state considerably.
Instant Speed: Operates at instant speed, granting the flexibility to react to opponents’ actions during their turn, or to suddenly shift the tide before your next draw.
Card Cons
Discard Requirement: Engaging with The Hippodrome card comes at a price that includes discarding another card. This condition can be particularly punishing when your hand is already stretched thin, forcing you to make tough decisions about which resources to sacrifice.
Specific Mana Cost: The Hippodrome demands a precise combination of mana types to be played effectively. This requirement can sometimes clash with the fluidity of your mana base, causing potential delays or a complete inability to cast the card when you need it most.
Comparatively High Mana Cost: Deploying The Hippodrome requires a substantial mana investment. When considering the competitive landscape of the game, there are alternative cards that might provide similar benefits without the hefty mana toll, allowing for a quicker and potentially more efficient gameplay experience.
Reasons to Include in Your Collection
Versatility: The Hippodrome offers a unique land option that can complement various deck builds. Its ability to produce any color of mana, as long as you control no untapped lands, makes it adaptable for multi-color decks striving for consistent mana fixing.
Combo Potential: In conjunction with cards that allow lands to be untapped, The Hippodrome can become an essential piece in generating high mana combos, making it a hidden gem for combo-centric players who look to exploit untapped land synergies.
Meta-Relevance: With ever-shifting metagames, The Hippodrome can provide a strategic edge in environments where mana flexibility is crucial. Adapting to diverse opponent strategies becomes easier with lands that offer multiple colors, ensuring your gameplay remains fluid and responsive.
How to beat
The Hippodrome presents a unique challenge on the battlefield. This card, a hidden gem for some players, creates an unorthodox game state by only allowing the creature with the highest power to attack each turn. This stipulation can hinder decks that rely on swarming the field with numerous creatures.
To effectively counter this card’s effect, consider including removal spells to dispatch your opponent’s leading powerhouse, thereby allowing your own creatures to take the stage. Additionally, playing cards with equal power creates a situation where no creatures meet the singular criterion to attack, potentially benefiting control strategies or decks that aren’t dependent on combat damage to win. Implementing spells or abilities that can manipulate power levels, such as pump spells or power-reducing effects, can also grant you the upper hand, allowing you to shift which creatures are eligible to engage in combat on your terms.
Adaptability is key when facing The Hippodrome. Flexibility in your strategy, coupled with an understanding of how to manipulate the rules this card sets forth, can turn a seemingly restrictive situation into a tactical advantage for players ready to think outside the conventional norms of creature combat.
Where to buy
If you're looking to purchase The Hippodrome MTG card by a specific set like Planechase Planes and Planechase Anthology Planes, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.
For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.
Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.
Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the The Hippodrome and other MTG cards:
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- eBay
- Card Kingdom
- Card Market
- Star City Games
- CoolStuffInc
- MTG Mint Card
- Hareruya
- Troll and Toad
- ABU Games
- Card Hoarder Magic Online
- MTGO Traders Magic Online
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Printings
The The Hippodrome Magic the Gathering card was released in 2 different sets between 2009-09-04 and 2018-12-25. Illustrated by Steve Argyle.
| # | Released | Name | Code | Symbol | Number | Frame | Layout | Border | Artist |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2009-09-04 | Planechase Planes | OHOP | 16 | 2003 | Planar | Black | Steve Argyle | |
| 2 | 2018-12-25 | Planechase Anthology Planes | OPCA | 36 | 2015 | Planar | Black | Steve Argyle |
Rules and information
The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering The Hippodrome card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.
| Date | Text |
|---|---|
| 2009-10-01 | A creature that would assign 0 or less combat damage (due to having power 0 or less) doesn’t assign combat damage at all. |
| 2009-10-01 | A face-up plane card that’s turned face down becomes a new object with no relation to its previous existence. In particular, it loses all counters it may have had. |
| 2009-10-01 | A plane card is treated as if its text box included “When you roll {PW}, put this card on the bottom of its owner’s planar deck face down, then move the top card of your planar deck off that planar deck and turn it face up.” This is called the “planeswalking ability.” |
| 2009-10-01 | Creatures may have negative power. For example, a 3/4 creature that gets -5/-0 becomes -2/4. The total of its power and toughness is 2. It would need +3/+0 to raise its power to 1. |
| 2009-10-01 | If an ability of a plane refers to “you,” it’s referring to whoever the plane’s controller is at the time, not to the player that started the game with that plane card in their deck. Many abilities of plane cards affect all players, while many others affect only the planar controller, so read each ability carefully. |
| 2009-10-01 | The controller of a face-up plane card is the player designated as the “planar controller.” Normally, the planar controller is whoever the active player is. However, if the current planar controller would leave the game, instead the next player in turn order that wouldn’t leave the game becomes the planar controller, then the old planar controller leaves the game. The new planar controller retains that designation until they leave the game or a different player becomes the active player, whichever comes first. |
| 2009-10-01 | You may target any creature with The Hippodrome’s chaos ability. Whether its power is 0 or less isn’t checked until the ability resolves. |