Hulk Flash is not comparable to Goblins in the way it defines the format. Goblins obviates blue-based control and shitty aggro. Hulk Flash obviates everything not packing at least 12 maindeck slots of hate for it. Even then it can beat many of these decks with reasonable consistency. I'm basing these observations on having playtested both with and against various (pre-FS) iterations of the deck for the last 8-10 hours. The only decks with any game against it whatsoever are either running 4x Fow, 3-4x Daze, and 3-4x Stifle, or are running 4x Duress, 4x Therapy, 4x Hymn. Everything else fails to cope.Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies
I recognize that the format hasn't had an opportunity to adjust yet, but I tire of the constant comparisons to Goblins. The comparison completely ignores the gravity of the impact being made.
Actually, I think Meat Hooks might be able to pull it off, although it would have to be tweaked from its current form. Basically, it would involve maindecking Stifles and bringing in Meddling Mages and Spell Snares from the sideboard.
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Artowis and Zilla are doing all my arguing for me. This is awesome.
As an aside, perhaps a new thread should be created in Community to discuss the impact of the deck on the format, and leave this thread for actual development of the deck.
When in doubt, mumble.
When in trouble, delegate.
Yeah, I had intended to do this, but I wanted to wait until after today to see if there were any relevant Oracle announcements. I'll take care of it tomorrow. I'm fucking exhausted.
Heh, I didn't do it because I didn't want to split about two hundred posts at this time of night. No worries; leave it for the East Coasters in the morning.
Hi, Nightmare!
When in doubt, mumble.
When in trouble, delegate.
The more I listen to you talk, the more I'm convinced you quite possibly have a better grasp of the format than anyone on this board.
Meathooks won't pull it off. You can't plan to beat this deck post-board. Beating it at all is hard. Planning to consistently beat it twice in a row is virtually impossible.
I too have been testing this off and on for the last 72 hours due to not having much of a life. Anyone who says "This deck is overhyped" and hasn't put at least a few hours in against a good Flash player has no clue what they're talking about whatsoever. Out of curiosity, I created a deck that runs Stifle, Mage, Trickbind, Duress, Therapy, Force, Daze, Confidant, and Leyline of the Void all maindeck, and Hulk Flash still went 3-7 against it! That's the pinnacle of absurdity. No deck should be 30% against the complete anti-deck of itself.
The absolute worst I did in testing was going 2-2 matches, 6-4 games against Iggy Pop. And this was before I maindecked four Leylines in Hulk Flash. I'm about done testing it against other decks. I'm fixing to focus entirely on winning the mirror.
I don't think I've even lost a game yet, to anything. Latest I've gone off is turn 2. My version is perfect IMO.
Rather than give set of unfounded claims about how awesome you play your perfect list, giving some examples of matchups, what hate was most effective against you, what hate was least effective against you, etc. Would be more helpful in furthering/crippling the deck (whichever you wish to do).
Also, claiming a list is perfect without posting it and explaining some choices seems a little more like an ego trip than constructive posting.
Maybe you could post your list for us and tell us why you chose the cards you did over the ones you didn't.
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From this fact alone I repeat my previous question. We have the first GP in 18 months coming to our format - if we could affect the errata on Flash before then, wouldn't we want to?
They won't and havn't errata'd flash again because Aaron wants all cards to do as printed if possible.
I had stated this elsewhere, but I have spoken to quite a few Judges now and they all indicated that the errata removal would stick and any issue would likely be dealt with come June 1st via a banning if needed.
I don't want to see flash as the necessary evil as it has many applications now, but Banning the hulk or the Disciple do not seem to stop the degeneracy.
The pre-FS version is probably on par with TES, since it loses both Pacts , however after FS is released this deck is too powerful imho.
The reason Flash Hulk is better than TES is because while TES is resilient to hate , this deck (despite Hanni thinking otherwise) largely ignores all hate.
Once Flash resolves (usually turn 0/1/2) the deck wins unless your opponent has trickbind.
This is not healthy for the format , and reminds me of the old academy situations of play it or beat it.
Eh since the thread is already way off-topic I guess this couldn't hurt.
Why? Why is the GP so important to keep free of a top dog and then counter decks? Pro Tours and GP's happen all the time with a broken top dog, some even better than this deck. It's just something that happens. People don't go 'well shit this needs to be banned' before a tourney because something is dominant, they just try to deal with it the best they can. Either by playing the best version or coming up with a counter to it.
In one sense it does kind of suck that Flash won't be seen in a smaller setting to see how it would've been adapted too. Especially, because yes, the deck is broken. Eventually it'll need to be dealt with.
In another way Flash is kind of interesting because it's brought the first major shift / innovation to the format in like a year or so. If Flash took the hit, then it's back to aggro / thresh / not as good combo dot format. Yeah you have more viable decks, but it's the same old shit. Replace High Tide with TES as 'token high placing combo deck' and would it surprise anyone if the results from this GP were basically the same as the last two?
To me both scenarios are pretty much garbage.
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Kyle Boddy, re: legacy players, Winner of SCG Seattle 5kFor those saying you should win a tournament before calling people retarded, well, I did win one. And you guys are retarded.
It's stronger than TES pre-FS. It's more consistent, just as fast (if not faster), and is much more resilient to hate. I say this having tested thoroughly with various Pactless builds.
Or Stifle. Or a turn 0 Leyline. Or Shadow of Doubt. Or a Children of Korlis. Or Samurai of the Pale Curtain. Or Meddling Mage. Or Aven Mindcensor. Or (depending on the builds) True Believer. Don't get me wrong... the deck is very very strong, but it's not unbeatable. It's just that the things that do successfully hate it are quite narrow, and are largely found in only a couple of colors.Once Flash resolves (usually turn 0/1/2) the deck wins unless your opponent has trickbind.
I think that ultimately the combo is simply too overpowered to be healthy for the format. But instead of bitching about it, I suggest we actually take this opportunity to embrace a lit bit of change and innovation. Actual tournament results will determine what action needs to be taken, if any. In the meanwhile, why don't we have some fun? With Flash in the mix, it's like playing in an entirely new format. We might as well explore and innovate until Flash gets the banhammer.
As someone has suggested, nobody is trying to hate it in the form of lifegaining.
And still Nourishing Shoal+Autochton Wurm (2 cards insta-combo, mana free) stops it dead. And does almost the same with TES and IGGy. And buys some time against aggro. It's not really that narrow...
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LoL Zilla , I said it was unhealthy , I didn't say I didn't like it ;)
I think this turn of events could be helpful as it will encourage players who were stuck in groove to innovate or lose.
It may also bring about a shift in the format that could be interesting, the choice of turn0 option vs consistency are also interesting.
I think we should work on this deck like Zilla said, untill it's banned or tamed.
Because this is a totally random errata, that undos months of testing for everyone planning on going to the GP. This deck beats almost every current deck, and seems to be created on a whim of Wizards.
You agree with me that it's broken, why does it need to be in existence?
We were already shifting toward more Combo, there was no need for making an absurdly good deck.
Everyone, does Engineered Plague even do anything to this? Disciples are 0/0s, they choose the order of creatures to GY, you still die. (I think).
[3. LocalDefense]: English is under attack!
I've been lurking these forums from many time now, but I had to register to say WOW! Just WOW! This deck is just unbelievable. Win on turn 0?
It has been pretty fun to read these threads on all MTG forums the last four days, but it's obvious that the deck must be killed ASAP. It's worse than playing solitaire, it's like playing Blackjack against a deck with 12 aces and 12 kings. It's the dream of every deckbuilder, and now that it's fulfilled, it should go.
There's something funny about this, though. My fastest aggro deck, able to kill in turn two, is too slow to stop this, as it never gets a combat step. But my type 2 Pebbles deck, packing Children of Korlis and Soul Warden, might be able to survive the Non-kikijiki combo.
Green decks, go get 4xEssence Warden, heh.
Eep. Having tested this, I am scared of this thing - it seems to be the combo to end all combos.
As far as raw speed goes, it seems to get marginally less turn 1 wins than Spanish Inquisition, but the difference is neglegible if you are prepared to throw back guaranteed-turn-2s-with-backup. The average goldfish is still faster because it's more consistent, and it is nowhere near as fragile.
For the soft benefits... each and every one other combo decks have also seem to be present in this one.
the deck can go off at instant speed and there is often little the opponent can do once it gets going (Solidarity)
it packs a considerable disruption suite (Gamekeeper)
It never fizzles barring enemy action (IGGy Pop)
It's very resilent (harder to slow down than TES... although arguably easier to cripple completely)
I guess my first big post got breezed over. I want to repeat something.
Everyone here who thinks Stifle is good at all is wrong. It's not. In fact any kind of reactive answer at all is bad because you have to be able to pressure them into not having a hand. Anyone who thinks discard is good is wrong. Mirage tutors and brainstorm have always been good vs discard, especially with a TWO CARD COMBO. Now I would repeat this for Chalice, Mage, Samurai of the Pale Curtain, Child of Korlis, 3Sphere, everything except Leyline but I don't have the time.
All the 'answers' either lose to just not doing anything (stifle, all countermagic, discard), are generally irrelevant (Chalice, 3sphere), or can be answered with 0-2 mana (all the proposed creature solutions, even leyline). The only reason leyline stands out is that it might get down before any of the 8 counterspells cant stop it.
Is this deck unbeatable? No, no deck technically is. But it honestly far and away unbeatable by every established archetype (save maybe UW fish, I cant say, haven't tested that vs actual good players). You guys are planning all this stuff just to beat it. Frankly, its a sign its unhealthy and Hulk will get banned come June 1st, but not before the GP. So we will see if people have the stones to run this in face of a million hate cards.
And someone asked me to post a list that we were using to literally plow straight through everything, can't. The GP is coming, needless to say, you'll see it when we top 32 with it.
Oh and you don't want to run any Pacts. At all. That's the dumbest thing in the world that I've ever heard. The combo costs 2 mana. It can EASILY be redone 4 times, more if you can get it back. Why the hell would you want to make it into a one shot win or lose attempt when the omst any deck could stop the combo is once but you could just do it again and win anyways. People, combo decks don't go off as fast as possible, they go off as the most opportune moment. So that could be on the eot of turn 10 or on your turn turn 2. The deck already crosses the finish line before any other deck does, so you might take half a turn off the average goldfish in exchange for the ability to reliably and easily go off 4 times in a game.
Hm, one funny thing when I play IGGy Pop:
Doesn't the Ley-line just shut down the Disciple's trigger?
Because those Creatures are removed from the game as Ley Line brings in a replacement effect (ah, wait, so Protean Hulk won't trigger as well!).
Shit, and I guess all that playtesting was wasted, apparently, according to the one interweb pundit.
It's hard to take you seriously when this is your reasoning on why running Pacts at the GP isn't a good idea.Oh and you don't want to run any Pacts. At all. That's the dumbest thing in the world that I've ever heard. The combo costs 2 mana. It can EASILY be redone 4 times, more if you can get it back. Why the hell would you want to make it into a one shot win or lose attempt when the omst any deck could stop the combo is once but you could just do it again and win anyways.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
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