[Discussion] Hulk Flash

[Volt]

Exactly, exactly, exactly! I was going to post a long-winded reply, but Zilla hit all the prominent points perfectly.

Okay, I'm tired of blogging this thread. My productivity at worked has sucked ass today. I'm done posting here until we find out what happens tomorrow.

[Aggro_zombies]

I agree with you completely on this one, Hanni. To put the whole thing in a less serious perspective: this deck is a lot like goatse.jpg. It has high shock value at first, but once you’re exposed to it for a while, it isn’t so horrifying anymore. Basically, this deck will entail the kind of metagame shift that Goblins did, where decks that couldn’t beat Goblins became marginalized and decks that could became big players. Now, instead of worrying about how you’re going to answer first-turn Lackey to avoid losing, you’re going to need to worry about answering first-turn Flash. Existing decks in the format, specifically Thresh, Meat Hooks, and Fish builds will become powerful contenders simply because the combination of countermagic + a clock will kill this deck. On the other end of things, decks like Pox and MUC or even a more discard-oriented build of Pikula will become big as well for their ability to pack a lot of answers to both this deck and the aggro-control decks floating around. Sure, pure aggro will die off, but isn’t pure control almost totally dead in the current format?

Furthermore, Hulk Flash very rarely has more than one usable counter in hand at a time: if you have both Force and Pact and no other expendable blue cards, your choice is to either Force removing the Pact or Pact and strand the Force in your hand. An opposing Force, backed up by something like Stifle on the leaves-play trigger or Daze on Hulk Flash’s counter, can ruin this deck’s day. Hell, your opponent won’t even have to do anything if you played a Pact, just untap, draw, pass the turn, and laugh as you lose on your upkeep. If the deck wants to be able to keep up with this, it will need to run more counters or splash black for discard, both of which will slow the deck down. The latter option there is the best, but it slows the deck down by a whole turn at least, which means that it’s now no faster than a deck like TES or Iggy, and well within the capabilities of the control decks in the format.

The more I test this deck, the more I am finding that hands come up which you simply cannot keep. If you’re trying to go off as quickly as possible (the safest plan if you want to avoid getting bent over backwards by disruption), you cannot keep a hand with more than one Disciple. It’s also risky to keep hands that have your X mana artifact guys in them, as they present more opportunities for your opponent to interfere with your combo, be it with a counter or discard or whatever. In short, you have to execute your combo quickly and perfectly or not at all. Fantastic when it works, beyond terrible if it doesn’t.

This deck is a brutally effective answer to the format right now, but when the format shifts to accommodate it, it won’t be anything nearly as bad as you guys say it will be. Hell, a deck like Miracle Gro will rape this thing in half, Pacts or no.

Since it seems to be the popular thing to do, I'll send my opinions on to Forsythe.

[noobslayer]

It's still a solid combo deck, but it is nowhere near the power level of TES or Belcher in their current states. For the GP, this deck won't be a concern.

You are sorely mistaken if you believe that. Krieger, slightly inebriated, at like 1 in the morning came up with a list that we concluded wasn't near optimal, but was still a force to be reckoned with. This list was not packing any of the future sight pacts, OR the turn 1 kill package, and it still have a favorable goblins match, and a slightly favorable match vs. gro and solidarity.

[Cire]

my version so far.

// Lands
2 Flooded Strand
1 Tropical Island
4 Gemstone Caverns
3 Polluted Delta
3 Island

// Creatures
4 Phyrexian Marauder
3 Shifting Wall
4 Disciple of the Vault
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Protean Hulk

// Spells
4 Mystical Tutor
1 Chain of Vapor
1 living wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Pact of Negation
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Flash

sb
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 xantid swarm
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Drake Familiar
1 Clone
10 other cards which dont really matter so far

And yeah i hope the deck stays as is, after the initial hype the oh my g-d hypeness of it, i found out its still a broken deck but i can imagine a future with this deck in exsitence.

Wraith was less than useful. You dont need to rush into a turn 0-1 win when you can win turn 2-3 just as easily. Also daze adds even more protection and living wish searchs for Boseiju, Who Shelters All just in that small case theres an unbreakable counterwall. It also searchs for combos best friend xantid swarm. 1 living wish is enough since you'll won't need it that much, but when you do mystical tutor, next turn wish is good enough.

Drake familiar is tech against leyline of the void.

[MrSoze]

I think that most of the salient points on both sides of the 'will Hulk Flash dominate' debate have been put forth at this point.

What I'd like to do is debate two things on the thread, if possible; which version to play, and what potential sideboard cards are showing the most promise.

Face it, we aren't going to know if the deck's legality is going to hold up until May 1st, so further debates on that are pointless. Not trying to marginalize anyone's opinion, but at this point, it feels as though we should be moving forward on the strategic functions of the deck.

Prelim testing has shown that running both chain of vapor and echoing truth in the board is beneficial. I am currently not running chrome mox in either of my builds, nor am I running gemstone caverns. Therefore, I'm looking for disruption should the game actually get to turn three. I'd say that using a black splash to supports Duress shows some promise, as does using Simplify to clear out Leyline of the Void. I think that, to avoid having to up the land count, we need to cap the sideboard at CC 4 or less, if only to not lose the raw power of the deck after board.

Has anyone been running Xantid Swarm in the main? I tried it out, and found it to be dead in a lot of matchups, but I was curious if anyone had seen different results.

My current MD disruption package is 4 FOW, 2 Daze, and 1 Divert. Keep in mind, I am only talking about Pre-GP builds here.

The second question is, do we run the combo switch sideboard talked about a few pages back? I see a few beneficial things to this, as once the opponent boards, being able to invalidate board cards like Pithing Needle, etc, is a strong play. Should you start with the DOTV variant, with the intention of siding into the K.Guide version, one would think that any intelligent opponent would not side Needle against you, plus it allows us to 'defend by omission' - by taking out all the dead cards from the first combo deck, we can side in sideboard hate to combat their sideboard hate all the while not giving up any combo space. If I can side out all eleven combo cards for three, that frees up 8 slots to put in anti-board cards on their front. This strategy appeals to me, as the opponent will have to guess as to which combo deck they are facing at any given turn. Should they fail to bring in Needles for Kiki, we've eliminated one of the great sideboard threats to that version of the deck, but who would bring in needles after we show them the Disciple kill in game one?

[noobslayer]

You need to have at least two green sources and two black sources, because there will be games you need to cast your hulks and disciples. You have to plan for these things.

[Cire]

was that directed at me?

hmm

Well right now my mana base is -

// Lands
2 Flooded Strand
1 Tropical Island
4 Gemstone Caverns
3 Polluted Delta
3 Island

So that means i just need black sources.

// Lands
1 Tropical Island
4 Gemstone Caverns
4 Polluted Delta
3 Island
1 Underground sea

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Has anyone tried Spoils? I think it'd be worth seeing if the cards lost hurt you often enough to negate the consistency it'd give you. Clone would obviously be necessary in said build.

Hanni - What list are you running?

[pooispoois]

I think a good usage of Sideboard space would be:

1) Disrupt. It has already been mentioned, and it answers so many of the deck's problems efficiently, it isn't even funny. It is already hard to hate on this combo, and subtracting discard and countermagic narrows the effective hate cards even more.

2) Discard (namely Duress and Cabal Therapy). I don't necessarily agree this is better than the 8-free-counters-plan, but they are complementary; what counters can't handle efficiently, discard can, and vice-versa. Against some decks it might even make sense to go hybrid, like running Force of Will and Duress and boarding out Pact of Negation.

3) Gemstone Caverns. This is actually one of the major improvements of running a sideboard in my opinion. Maindecking them and then siding them out for Underground Seas in the second game or vice-versa is devastating. I think this is the best way of hybridizing the raw speed of the Gemstone builds with the consistency of the non-Gemstone builds. It will also keep your opponents guessing, even after they know your sideboard plan (never has it been so hard to decide whether to play or draw).

Other good suggestions are Chalice of the Void (mirror and other Combo) and Boseiju, which was suggested earlier and is actually not a bad idea. Xantid Swarm also seems somewhat effective. I'm talking about these cards separately since, in my opinion, they are almost strictly inferior to the discard sideboard plan.

[Hanni]

Care to post the list, Noobslayer? I'm interested in seeing it if you don't mind. If not, I understand. I still fail to comprehend how this deck would outrace Belcher or have a stronger resilience to hate than TES without FS. If you run Wordly Tutor + Mystical Tutor, your clock becomes turn 3 consistent and you lack resiliency of cards like Swarm, Chant, Duress, etc. Your also much more susceptible to cards like Meddling Mage. I really don't see how you beat Thresh but I can how it would probably beat Solidarity. I thought TES/IGGy, and even Aluren to an extent, were more popular right now than Solidarity though.

Godzilla... I'm not being biased at all. I've been playing with the deck all day and it's really not OMGZ BrOkEn as everyone keeps claiming. Does it push out aggro? Possible. Does TES and Belcher do the same? I think so. The combo era has already been put into effect... Salvagers, Aluren, TES, IGGy, Solidarity, and now Hulk Flash. The format was dominated by aggro for how long? Now combo wants to move in. Adapt. Put some cards in your deck that will answer combo. If you're worried about them being narrow, find versatile answers. Ya know... how Stifle is amazing vs Goblins and combo at the same time kinda things? Or how Duress is good vs Thresh, Landstill, and combo? Yea, I'm sure some aggro might get pushed out. Other aggro can adopt answers. What's wrong with splashing black for Duress/Therapy in something like Zoo? Or even in Angel Stompy? Yea, they might bounce your True Believer. Tweak a little. Wouldn't turn 1 Chrome Mox + Tomb into Trinisphere help? It doesn't stop their Flash... it slows down their Mystical Tutor -> Flash. Maybe try Chalice. If that doesn't work, why not splash black? Or blue? How many decks packing black run Engineered Plague in their sideboards (before EtW was released)? Isn't this an extremely narrow hate card?

I can go on and on with this. Post a decklist that you think the format cannot handle. I'll toss it into my playtest repitoire.

This is an Eternal format. Cards like LED, Lotus Petal, Chrome Mox, Dark Ritual, Mystical Tutor, so on and so forth aren't banned... they aren't even restricted. Did everyone really expect the metagame to stay aggro and play a bunch of 1cc 2/3 beats with no disruption forever?

4 Duress and 3 Cabal Therapy splashed into any decent low range aggro deck makes for a deck that can beat Hulk Smash. If they win turn 1, there's nothing you could do regardless. I've lost to IGGy Pop, TES, and Belcher on turn 1 before. Hulk Smash may win more regularly on turn 1. It still happens. If the eternal format supports the cards strong enough, maybe Wizards will do a big combo ban. I don't find it unhealthy... I haven't seen any super consistent turn 1 kills from any of these decks. If they don't go first, I'm sure that Chrome Mox, Duress, Therapy on turn 1 is going to be a total house in a Zoo deck, followed by some beats that follow. Decks have constantly been forced to hybridize to survive... pure board control decks transformed into aggro/board control decks like 4c Landstill. Combo evolved into combo-control. If aggro is forced to evolve into aggro/control, then so it must. Both blue and black offer awesome disruption elements at splashable prices.

Yes, the combo heavyness will force a shift in the metagame. Yes, decks will have to accomodate hate. The hate your suggesting is narrow and worthless vs everything else. I'm reassuring you that the valid hate will be effective in other matchups besides just combo. I don't see why having additional deckbuilding pressures are such a bad thing. I think it's time to see a shift from "Legacy is an aggro dominated format" into "Legacy has evolved into hybridized deck designs that interact with combo, aggro, and control or contain some of those elements." Loam based decks may get bad... they should still easily run cards like Cabal Therapy. Aggro Loam like Terrageddon G/W/b style could definitely be viable. Control combo like Tog with Duress, Force, and a ton of other disruption could now become more viable.

If a ton of decks become unviable, what decks would become viable now? And what decks that become unviable could become viable if they simply adapted to handle the shift in combo?

My decklist is probably bad. Post me a better decklist to test, maybe the list I've been playing has been heavily affecting my judgement.

Hulk Flash

Lands (10)
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
3 Island
1 Underground Sea

Creatures (16)
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Protean Hulk
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Shifting Wall
3 Phyrexian Marauder

Spells (34)
4 Brainstorm
4 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Flash
1 Echoing Truth
4 Pact of Negation
4 Force of Will
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal

I do not currently have a sideboard. I have seen many people say that the Chrome Moxes are bad, and that could be affecting my results with the deck. I do not think it is a lack of playskill... because frankly, the deck doesn't require a whole lot of playskill. Beyond that, I've probably played a good 300 hands so far and I don't think I'm making many mistakes. I grab ESG with Pact when I need to, etc.

Any suggestions? I'm currently considering going to Kiki Jiki route to cut the dead slots and add in more disruption and Merchant Scrolls.

[Nihil Credo]

Whoa, this has gotta be the fastest thread in the whole Source. With good reason though...

First of all, everything Godzilla said about the power-level of this deck. Playing this deck feels like I brought a Vintage special to Legacy.
And regarding this, someone brought up Meandeck Tendrils for the comparison... Meandeck Tendrils *is* indeed a broken deck even in Vintage, able to win on turn 1 the majority of the time and often through a FoW. The sole reason it has never made a splash is because it's also quite possibly the most difficult deck to play, ever. Goldfishing the deck is much, much more tiring than playing Solidarity against Threshold. It's *that* tough.
Hulk Flash plays on autopilot about half the time, and requires minimal choices the other half (like: "How many counters does he have?"; you don't even have to worry about passing the turn and getting killed, because you go off at instant speed).

Secondly, regarding the development of the deck, I have dropped the sow-as-hell Merchant Scrolls and adopted 4 Street Wraiths in the maindeck. They combo with Mystical Tutor to speed you up one full turn; that's awesome beyond words, playing 1-mana instant Demonic Tutors is the stuff that only happens in Type 1. They're great with Brainstorm too (incidentally, if I draw an opener with 1-2 Wraiths and there's a Brainstorm in there, keeping the hand becomes a lot less risky). And they get sided out in a pinch, which means less that they're good in the deck and more that they're good for my (and everyone else's) inexperience in playing matches with Hulk Flash. I have also added a second ESG, after multiple instances of needing a second one.

Compared to the list on page 3 which I used for goldfishing, the new one has:
-2 Merchant Scroll
-1 Underground Sea
-2 Island
-1 Flooded Strand
+1 Tropical Island
+1 Elvish Spirit Guide
+4 Street Wraith

Not really deserving of a point of its own, but still: if anyone wanted to see if Lat-Nam's Legacy works in this deck, spare yourself the time.

Thirdly, I tried Chrome Moxes as in Hanni's build, and no wonder he's skeptical: they're completely awful. The problem is that the only time I need colored mana is to cast Flash; every other time, I need blue, which means I need to imprint a business spell on them. If I could pitch extra 0/0s, Disciples, or Hulks to them, they would be great, but as it is, the Moxes have been dead so often that I'm not going to touch them again.

Fourthly, I built a (serious) sideboard:

2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Simplify
4 Stifle
3 Xantid Swarm
3 Daze
1 Research/Development

Divining Top is an answer to discard-based hate. Basically, you use this to keep a combo piece or a tutor floating on top of your deck until you see the second. Then you draw for the turn, draw with the top and go off in the face of that Nantuko Shade.
Note that Divining Top is meant for *heavy* disruption with *slow* clocks. In other words, decks like Pikula, not Red Death. Against Red Death, Daze is better.

Simplify is for Leyline of the Void and Solitary Confinement. Nicely tutorable with Mystical. Double Leyline of the Void is less of a concern than the one extra mana required for Echoing Truth or Tranquil Domain.

Xantid Swarm's purpose is obvious. Any deck that runs countermagic and is not the mirror match warrants bringing this one in.

Stifle is for the mirror match, which if this deck sees more play will likely become very common. Remember that it's a decent answer to Chalice of the Void too, and (unlike Trickbind) might also stop a Counterbalance trigger. I initially had also 3 Trickbind, but cut them in favour of the more versatile and less expensive...

...Daze. This one too comes in for the mirror, but can also replace the Pacts of Negation against nonblue opponents. They can't really afford to play around it, so it winds up being more reliable than Pact, and less narrow than Disrupt. And in the mirror match, it plays nicely alongside Pact to give you an edge in the inevitable counterwar.

Research/Development is just in case you get hit by Extirpate. That hasn't happened to me yet, but I feel an out is needed. If I have won Game 1, I don't bring this in even against black decks, because it's dead a lot more often than Chain of Vapor, and dead cards suck.

Fifthly and lastly, while Hulk Flash is absolutely broken in Legacy, you get a nice, fun, and playable Vintage deck if you just make the following changes:
-3 Petal
-3 Mystical Tutor
-2 Island
-1 Street Wraith
+5 Moxes
+1 Black Lotus
+1 Imperial Seal
+1 Vampiric Tutor
+1 Demonic Tutor
+1 Ancestral Recall


Nihil here, praying for an answer from Forsythe this week.

Edit: I just read Hanni's last post. Frankly, this quote

4 Duress and 3 Cabal Therapy splashed into any decent low range aggro deck makes for a deck that can beat Hulk Smash.

is wrong on so many levels, I had to cut & paste it in just to remark it.
Of course, it's quite possible that Hulk Smash loses to a Duress and a Wild Mongrel; Hulk Flash, however, does not.

[pooispoois]

Tranquil Domain is for Leyline of the Void and Solitary Confinement. Nicely tutorable with Mystical, which gives it the nod over Simplify.

Actually, both of them are tutorable.

[Nihil Credo]

Thank you, I forgot Mystical doesn't fetch just instants. Fixed.
(This is particularly good, because the reason I cut Merchant Scroll was that I hated having to play a non-Flash two-mana card, because it messed up the "curve" of the deck, Chalice of the Void be damned. Now I'm very happy that all I play is either free, 1cc, or wins the game. Well, except for R&D, but I've never had to play it so far.)

[Hanni]

Edit: I just read Hanni's last post. Frankly, this quote

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanni
4 Duress and 3 Cabal Therapy splashed into any decent low range aggro deck makes for a deck that can beat Hulk Smash.

is wrong on so many levels, I had to cut & paste it in just to remark it.
Of course, it's quite possible that Hulk Smash loses to a Duress and a Wild Mongrel; Hulk Flash, however, does not.

I meant to say Hulk Flash, and I didn't say that it would completely wreck Hulk Flash. I said that it would allow the deck to be able beat Hulk Flash. 7 1cc discard spells will hurt the deck and make the matchup alot better for Zoo game 1. If they bring in 1 Therapy and 3 Extirpate from the sideboard, I can see the matchup being extremely strong for Zoo.

Based on you're suggestions, I've done the following changes to my list:

-1 Protean Hulk (I'm very skeptical about this)
-1 Merchant Scroll
-4 Chrome Mox
+1 Tropical Island
+1 Elvish Spirit Guide
+4 Street Wraith

I'll try it. Not really sure if I like it though. Street Wraith just seems likes it's going to make the already difficult/terrible mulligans worse. We'll see.

I'm also going to try your sideboard card for card but... would Divert be better than Top? Top seems fairly mana hungry (2 mana to get use and 1 mana beyond that). I'll try Top for now. Disrupt and Divert, and even Misdirection, seem like good alternatives to it if it ends up being slow.

EDIT: Actually, I tweaked the board for personal tastes...

Sideboard (15)
3 Daze
3 Duress
4 Xantid Swarm
2 Simplify
1 Research//Development
2 Sensei's Divining Top

[Volt]

Stifle is for the mirror match, which if this deck sees more play will likely become very common. Remember that it's a decent answer to Chalice of the Void too, and (unlike Trickbind) might also stop a Counterbalance trigger. I initially had also 3 Trickbind, but cut them in favour of the more versatile and less expensive...

Oh, yeah, I've been meaning to mention this for a while... In a pinch, Stifle can save you from dying to your own PoN. At least, I'm pretty sure it does (?).

EDIT: Yeah, it does. Oh, and I guess I lied about not posting in this thread anymore today. Oh well.

[C.P.]

I meant to say Hulk Flash, and I didn't say that it would completely wreck Hulk Flash. I said that it would allow the deck to be able beat Hulk Flash. 7 1cc discard spells will hurt the deck and make the matchup alot better for Zoo game 1. If they bring in 1 Therapy and 3 Extirpate from the sideboard, I can see the matchup being extremely strong for Zoo.

I was playing against the deck with the deck with 4 duress + 4 therapy + 4 hymns(I SBed, while they did not), and Still did not find the match favorable. The deck that I played wrecks every other combo deck in legacy including belcher and TES, And I fail to see how those decks are better than Hulk Flash. You are saying that a set of therapy will beat the deck, but I doubt it. This deck goes off fast in instant speed,l not requiring much setup.

Just as a record, I was playing against post FS version with disciples.

[Machinus]

I have a question for whoever is willing to go the wotc forums. I am unclear about what exactly is happening with the DCI.

Is the wording in gatherer just preparation for the May 1st update? Is this the final wording on the card, or are they going to be re-errataing the card? Why remove the errata just to re-errata it?

Apparently everyone here thinks this card is going to remain useful. Am I the only person that went over to read at the wizards boards?

[Mirrislegend]

I guess so. Not all of us have Wizards accounts. So, enlighten us?

[cdr]

Apparently everyone here thinks this card is going to remain useful. Am I the only person that went over to read at the wizards boards?

Huh? The Flash revision was ready for the FUT Gatherer update, so it went in at that time. Wizards will not change the wording of the card any further.

The May 1 Gatherer update (assuming it actually goes up on the 1st, which they rarely do) will remove the outdated "rulings" from Flash's file, that's it.

They do not care how "broken" or not the card is. If necessary (yeah right), it would be addressed in the June banned/restricted list update.

I seriously doubt they expected this many people to care.

[Bovinious]

Heres what some guy on the Wizards forums said:

this is from my friend who is a DCI Judge...

"Those two rulings no longer apply as worded; they were based on errata that has been replaced. Mark Gottlieb, our Rules Manager, has put considerable effort into evaluating old errata and reverting to the original wording of many cards, or original intent with current templating. As a result, the Oracle wording on Flash has been updated more recently than those rulings; the next Gatherer update is scheduled for May 1st, and Sheldon (the Gatherer NetRep) is aware of this not-for-long discrepancy."


So it will work until may 1st... If they change it again then or not, but he thinks it will get changed back... it's WAY to Broken!

I really think they have to consider the GP which is before June 1 and either undo the erratum on this thing or emergency ban it, it will poison the format and the GP if it is allowed to remain.