[Deck] U/B HulkFlash AKA "Snatch"

[xsockmonkeyx]

This thread is for the discussion of a slower, more stable version of the HulkFlash combo. It is blue and black only and I feel it is the strongest version of the Pre-Future Sight Hulk Flash decks. Frankly, I was tired of people getting confused about which deck I was talking about in the HF thread. Also, I feel it is a fairly defined list that has already seen successful tournament play (Mr. Nipples, tourney report: here. (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=129881&postcount=772)) and it warranted a thread of its own.

U/B HulkFlash AKA "Snatch"

Combo
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Karmic Guide
2 Carrion Feeder
1 Benevolent Bodyguard

2 Body Snatcher
4 Hulk
4 Flash

Protection
4 Fow
4 Daze
4 Duress
1 Echoing Truth

Tutor/Cantrip
4 Mystical Tutor
4 LimDuals Vault
4 Brainstorm
3 Serum Visions/Impulse

Lands
4 Polluted Delta
2 Strand
1 Mire

4 U Sea
3 Watery Grave

2 Island
1 Swamp

SB
3 Massacre
2 Footsteps of the Goryo
2 Echoing Truth
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Engineered Explosives

The idea here is simple. You have a powerful game winning combo that goes off at 2 mana and at instant speed. Your job is to use discard, free counter magic, and tutors to protect your combo grab your pieces and win the game. You can go off as early as turn 2 against a deck that packs no disruption and you have hate of your own to ensure you can combo off against control.

The Combo - this deck uses the Kiki-Karmic guide combo largely because it takes up the least number of slots in the deck. This is how the combo works:

1)Flash in Hulk

2)Grab Karmic Guide and Carrion Feeder, Karmic Guide pulls out Hulk.

3) Sac Hulk. Hulk pulls out Bodyguard and Kiki Jiki.

4)Copy KG with Kiki. In response, sac Kiki. The copied KG pulls out Kiki. Rise and repeat.

5)Attack for a billion, flying, pro: black.


If you have one of the combo pieces like Kiki or Guide in your hand when trying to combo pull body snatcher out of your library instead and snatch the piece into play.You play 1 Benevolent Bodyguard and an extra Carrion Feeder to protect your pieces from StP. If your opponent has StP then instead of grabbing KG...


.... Hulk grabs Carrion Feeder, Benevolent Bodyguard, and Body Snatcher.

When the Body Snatcher trigger is on the stack, you sacrifice it to the Carrion Feeder. Body Snatcher's graveyard ability will trigger long before his come into play ability can trigger, and Protean hulk will be back in play and happy to get eaten by the Carrion Feeder again.

The Hulk then grabs KG and the Bodyguard can be sacced in response to StP.

You can also start the combo by using Body Snatcher and killing him somehow. This can be useful as a way to circumvent Meddling Mage or if you fail to draw into Flash in time. He also provides a cool nickname for the deck and has nice artwork. Plus, its IBA's sekrit tek. How can it not unfail?

1)Play Body Snatcher, discarding Hulk.

2)Sac Snatcher to feeder, block with him(not that they would let you) sac to Cabal Therapy, Massacre, etc.-->return Hulk to play->combo out

Tutors: Limdul's vault and Mystical Tutor help you find your pieces for the combo and hate necessary to protect it. They also can "hide" spells on top of your library at instant speed to protect from discard. Merchant Scroll is also a strong candidate for these slots but does not have this protective feature.

Counterspells/Discard: Necessary to fight through all of the hate that is sure to be thrown Hulk Flash's way. You want cheap easy disruption like Duress, Daze, and FoW often times to counter your opponants own Duress's, Dazes and FoW's. In order to beat control all you need is one more piece of disruption than they can throw at you.

Cantrips: Brainstorms also hide key pieces of your combo in the face of discard and is suberb all around anyway. Serum Visions' scry and Impluse's "put on the bottom of your library" abilities are useful in ensuring your combo in in you library, available to grab. If you see one of your combo pieces on top of your library its nice to be able to put it on the bottom.

Brainstorm with fetchlands is especially key because you really want to shuffle away your combo pieces if you draw into them.

Acceleration: Some players run Lotus Petal. I do not run any acceleration as I feel the combo is fast enough and I would rather dedicate those slots to more disruption. However, Lotus Petal speeds up your capability to combo out even if it is burned to cast a tutor in order to find a combo piece. Some players even play Chrome Mox.

Sideboard: You want to have at least 3 Massacre in your SB. Srsly the card kills more fish than a mercury leak. Free one sided wrath of god makes 2 mage almost necessary to stop you. Against discard Im trying Footsteps of the Goryo because its a tutorable win condition if they happen to nab your hulk. You want something to deal with Pithing Needle and Chalice. Engineered Explosives fulfills this role quite adequately and can also be used to kill fishy creatures in a pinch. Other than that you probably need something to deal with the eventual mirror match. There is a whole thread dedicated to hating this deck so I wont go into it.


Other Possibilities: Other possible ideas are Unmask, Misdirection, Cabal Therapy, Extirpate, and other forms of quick, cheap disruption. You can also use Summoner's Egg in place of Body Snatcher as they have largely the same effect. BS could be pitched to Unmask so if you are running that card then certainly run Snatcher. Also, if you play Unmask then it might be good to play Diabolic Visions in your cantrip slot as it gives you another U/B card to pitch.

[MrSoze]

I have a quick question, more a bit of understanding;

If they point the plow at the Karmic Guide in response to the CIP trigger, do you then sac the hulk to get body snatcher? What if you have no creature to discard?

In the primer you give, there doesn't seem to be a situation in which this happens, and I'm curious, since it seems as though any player with half a brain will plow the Guide instead of the other options. I understand how this isn't a problem if you play two guides, as you can just start the combo over again with the returned Hulk, but your list has only one. Since the point of playing this combo as opposed to the Disciple one is that you take up less slots, it doesn't seem as though the numbers will dictate you having another creature in hand.

Again, perhaps I'm not seeing it, so please fill me in on this one. Thanks.

[xsockmonkeyx]

I have a quick question, more a bit of understanding;

If they point the plow at the Karmic Guide in response to the CIP trigger, do you then sac the hulk to get body snatcher? What if you have no creature to discard?

In the primer you give, there doesn't seem to be a situation in which this happens, and I'm curious, since it seems as though any player with half a brain will plow the Guide instead of the other options. I understand how this isn't a problem if you play two guides, as you can just start the combo over again with the returned Hulk, but your list has only one. Since the point of playing this combo as opposed to the Disciple one is that you take up less slots, it doesn't seem as though the numbers will dictate you having another creature in hand.

Again, perhaps I'm not seeing it, so please fill me in on this one. Thanks.


You sac the Hulk and grab Bodyguard and Kiki/Body Snatcher. You sac Bodyguard to give KG pro white.

[MrSoze]

Okay, you're missing what I'm asking.

The Karmic Guide's trigger uses the stack. What I'm asking is, if in response to the trigger, before the hulk enters play, the opponent plows the guide. The hulk isn't in play at this point.

The point is that you resolve the Hulk trigger after the flash. State-based effects check when a player receives priority, so the K Guide trigger will use the stack like any other CIP trigger. Therefore, the opponent allows the Guide to trigger, and in response plows, before the Hulk gets into play. What is the deck's plan for this instance?

Was that a clearer way to state my question?

[TheAardvark]

Uh, the very first KG trigger is what he is asking about, and since that trigger uses the stack, the opponent can respond with StP (or whatever else) targeting the Guide before the trigger resolves. You have to Daze/FoW at that point, pretty much.

[DougieFresh]

Well the obvious answer to this whole thing is simply... You would never, ever combo out like that, where you could get Swords'd. Instead with Hulk, go get Snatcher, Carrion Feeder, Bodyguard. Then sacrifice Snatcher to feeder, bringing back Hulk, which then you sac to Feeder again, getting Guide, bringing back hulk, sac'ing that to feeder, getting KJ. So at no point during this whole thing could they ever Swords without you simplying going... Uh, pro white my guy, thanks.

[MrSoze]

Um...

As I stated before, I understand the body snatcher- but if you don't have a creature in hand to discard, you have to RFG it, thereby bypassing the graveyard and going straight to d'ohville. Since the point of this version of the combo is to take up fewer slots, how often are you going to have that extra creature to discard?

Quick question: Can you stack the CIP Ability of the Snatcher and then sacrifice it to the feeder before said trigger resolves, or not? Because if you can, then this answer works fine.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Thanks, I guess ill add that to the opening post. Honestly, during testing to save time we just made sure that the conditions were met for the combo, not actually playing it out.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Sigh.

Hulk goes to the graveyard. Hulk grabs Carrion Feeder, Benevolent Bodyguard, and Body Snatcher.

When the Body Snatcher trigger is on the stack, you sacrifice it to the Carrion Feeder. Body Snatcher's graveyard ability will trigger long before his come into play ability can resolve, and Protean hulk will be back in play and happy to get eaten by the Carrion Feeder again.

I shall say good day to you, sir.

[MrSoze]

Sigh.

And, despite the copious and dripping amount of sarcasm in your post when all I asked for was a clarification on an issue that is tantamount to resolving the deck's kill conditions correctly, I shall say Thank You, Sir.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Sigh.

And, despite the copious and dripping amount of sarcasm in your post when all I asked for was a clarification on an issue that is tantamount to resolving the deck's kill conditions correctly, I shall say Thank You, Sir.

I was actually being "sarcastic" at sockmonkey, because you should probably know how a card works after playtesting with it for a while.

[xsockmonkeyx]

you should probably know how a card works after playtesting with it for a while.

You think that would be the case. :tongue:

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

You think that would be the case. :tongue:

This is why you're not the mightiest wizard in the realm. And you never will be.

[xsockmonkeyx]

This is why you're not the mightiest wizard in the realm. And you never will be.

Meh. Im not really worried about that.

[Happy Gilmore]

I don't see the Necessity to run a second Carrion Feeder, I would much rather have the 4th impulse/Portent/Serum Visions.

[outsideangel]

This is why you're not the mightiest wizard in the realm. And you never will be.

Don't mind Jack. He's just jealous because I'm a 10th level wizard, far beyond his diminuitive power level.

Anyway...

That there mana base looks sorta all over the place. For example, why wouldn't you run the full set of fetchlands, to maximize shuffle effects? -2 Grave +2 Strand for sure.

[xsockmonkeyx]

IBA created a better thread for this deck (with a much cooler name I might add) in the Open forum. Here is a link (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5741) for you lazybones out there.

Lockjob plz. :smile: