[Discussion] Hulk Flash

[slyfer]

Are you sure they will do anything in case of polarized meta?
Wizard doesn't care about Legacy.
It will leave us in unhealthy unplayable format...

By the way I think they have cheetah and tarzan as "R&D card developer", LOL, they really do thing like idiots in designing rules

[Sims]

They cannot be total idiots, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to keep alive a game that has millions of players, thousands of cards, and tournaments devoted to the game after nearly what, 13 years?

Wizards may not care about Legacy in the same respect as they care about Standard and Extended, but they aren't total idiots either. If we can prove the deck is what everyone thinks and sees it is, they'll do something about it. Regardless of what your opinion of R&D and their processes are.

[Bane of the Living]

They cannot be total idiots, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to keep alive a game that has millions of players, thousands of cards, and tournaments devoted to the game after nearly what, 13 years?

Wizards may not care about Legacy in the same respect as they care about Standard and Extended, but they aren't total idiots either. If we can prove the deck is what everyone thinks and sees it is, they'll do something about it. Regardless of what your opinion of R&D and their processes are.

I disagree, I honestly think R&D is the most overpayed job position available. The guys honestly just sit in a room and play fuckin magic ALL DAY. How do you explain the retarded block deck that was Ravager Affinity? Obviously someone fell asleep on the job. How about back in the days of Urza Block when they really did need to do an emergency ban on a card not even in our hands? How can they possibly miss things like this? I understand the whole disconcern for Legacy but if they were that little concerned they wouldnt be setting these GPs up for us.

In short they changed a card without considering any of the consequences. Development without research.

[Zilla]

What abilities? If True Believer is in play, their abilities do jack shit.

True Believer is worse than useless against the Karmic Guide version of the combo. Same goes for Children of Korlis, Soul Warden, etc. Furthermore, any smart Flash player will already be running Massacre in their sideboard as an answer to Meddling Mage, which incidentally hits these other creatures, and Samurai of the Pale Curtain as well. Unless you want to lose half of your Hulk Flash matchups, I'd strongly recommend looking elswhere for tech.

[MattH]

I for one still want Flash in the environment, even if Hulk is gone. There's just too much untested with this card, and it's power level is absolutely dependent on WHAT it puts into play.

That is exactly the same argument they used to keep Tinker around. Tinker, which was useful but not dominating or even strong for most of its existence. Until Mirrodin, the best play was Tinker for Jar, and when that was banned, Tinker for...uh, Mishra's Helix, maybe. Tinker looked like a fair card until they printed interesting large artifacts. It is clear, in retrospect, that Tinker was the problem, because as long as it was legal, printing any large and good artifacts was an invitation to PT:NO-style Magic. Same with Flash - they are restricted in how good they can make "leaves play" creatures if they left Flash legal.

Definitely Flash would be the card to go.


Also, Wizards has not maintained a "watch list" for like five years now. At some point they realized EVERY CARD was on the "watch list" in the sense that they would ban anything they had to, and just dropped the pretense altogether.

@Zilla: the use of True Believer is so you can Hulk for 4 Disciples, 0cc guys, and Believer, and go off in the face of opposing Disciples (such as from Affinity). Also occasionally will keep you from being Hymned, but that's sufficiently rare enough to be zero chance.

[android]

True Believer is worse than useless against the Karmic Guide version of the combo. Same goes for Children of Korlis, Soul Warden, etc. Furthermore, any smart Flash player will already be running Massacre in their sideboard as an answer to Meddling Mage, which incidentally hits these other creatures, and Samurai of the Pale Curtain as well. Unless you want to lose half of your Hulk Flash matchups, I'd strongly recommend looking elswhere for tech.

All I have to say about the Karmic Guide version is StP maindeck. That's an auto-include in just about any Legacy deck running white. Also, do you honestly think that any less than 75% of the Flash decks will be running the Disciple version? I don't.

[Rastadon]

Is it possible that WotC is aware of how broken Hulk is, and is just deciding to let it take its course? Sure, the gut reaction is to ban it. But is it possible that they aren't incompetent and rather are looking at this as an opportunity to do something?

[TheAardvark]

All I have to say about the Karmic Guide version is StP maindeck. That's an auto-include in just about any Legacy deck running white. Also, do you honestly think that any less than 75% of the Flash decks will be running the Disciple version? I don't.

Keep in mind that even pre-FS, Hulk will be running up to 8 free counters (Daze, FoW), so StP may very well do exactly nothing at all.

[Awesomator]

Is it possible that WotC is aware of how broken Hulk is, and is just deciding to let it take its course? Sure, the gut reaction is to ban it. But is it possible that they aren't incompetent and rather are looking at this as an opportunity to do something?

All this will do is change our metagame, kind of like a reset where we all have to find new decks to fit into this metagame. I kind of like flash coming in, because it makes almost all of the decks we're already playing tier 2. New decks will come in that are favorable vs flash, and will have bad matchups against other decks and so on. Kind of a cool balance even though bad players can play flash decks nearly as well as good players can, although they will probably find some way to screw it up.

[Bane of the Living]

Kind of a cool balance even though bad players can play flash decks nearly as well as good players can, although they will probably find some way to screw it up.

This I disagree on. Altho a bad player can pick up some deck and do well with it the performance between a player lacking skill and a pro is considerable. Any deck is better with a better pilot. This deck can be more complicated than meets the eye. Thats probably why some people are saying its not a big deal while others are on the other end of the spectrum with the emergency banning pleas. You need to decide when to push comboing early and how to push a mulligan. The mirror match can be a nightmare but so far it seems like it comes down to who can combo the earliest.

[Zilla]

All I have to say about the Karmic Guide version is StP maindeck.

And all I have to say is Benevolent Bodyguard.

That's an auto-include in just about any Legacy deck running white. Also, do you honestly think that any less than 75% of the Flash decks will be running the Disciple version?

Yes. The versions running the more compact combo have much more room for disruption. They may be a bit slower, but they'll be favored in the mirror.

[DeathwingZERO]

MattH, you've seemed to miss the key aspects of Tinker, comparing Flash to it. These two cards are by no means ever in the same power level categories.

1) Tinker puts said artifact into play, permanently. We're trying to break a card that puts the card into play BASED on the fact it's going to the graveyard, and trigger something.

2) There's a huge difference between paying 3 mana to drag out a Darksteel Colossus, Mindslaver, Jar, etc for saccing a Seat of the Synod, and finding a creature like Academy Rector, etc that won't immediately win after Flash resolves. Hulk is the only thing talked about so far that does this.

3) While they both are heavily reliant upon what they put into play, Tinker was also broken because the card you got was in the LIBRARY. It was a tutor that ALSO puts the card into play, not a cheap and instant speed CiP/LP engine like Sneak Attack. Flash still requires you to have said creature in hand, meaing you either have to tutor for it, or have many more copies than Tinker requires.

In this regard, Tinker is much more akin to Oath, not Flash. Flash itself isn't, and will never be (post Hulk) the problem card, because on the average creatures coming in/leaving play are less powerful than artifacts sitting on the table. Aside from finding this random ability (which decks have already known about in Extended, running Ravager over the 8 auto-suicide creatures, but without good free counters like FoW the deck never took off), there hasn't been anything that resembles Hulk in power level. Flash merely turns a 7cc TUTOR into a 2cc instant. Yes, that's a damn good ability, but it's not the problem. Nobody has even talked about an instant-win & non-counterable mechanism from Flash post-Hulk, and I'm pretty certain there isn't one.

Arguably, another reason why this deck is so potent is the fact that it CAN run 12 potentially free counterspells, because of the insane amount of deckslots it has. That severely limits the amount of good disruption that can be thrown at it. My main question is, if we were going to find another combo kill from Flash, could you still support that much protection, and even so, could the deck be THIS powerful?



Oh, and Bane, you have R&D completely wrong. Yes, they do get to playtest a ton of the time, but a majority of R&D's playtesting is to see how the cards interact, both with future sets and previous ones. They also have to go back through the entire database and compare cards to previous (possible) versions printed, looking for various rules loopholes that can be broken to achieve a certain effect without going overboard (Astral Slide), etc. It's not like all of their games are fun, there's a lot of note taking and work that goes into each of those.

There's a ton of "actual" work that goes into R&D, with having to talk to the set designers about changes, cutting cards from sets and putting new ones in, etc. It really is a job. And in all honesty, having only slips like Memory Jar, etc from Urza's and the Affinity deck/Clamp in Mirrodin in my opinion is pretty damn good track record for 12 YEARS of solid gameplay in total. Sure, those cards broke the decks in T2 and could have had huge effect on Extended, but that really is a small price to pay for a game that has literally only grown since 93.

They've admitted to each mistake as soon as it was known, whether it be Memory Jar nearly immediately after coming out, or Clamp/Affinity after people abused them. Keep in mind though, a clear majority of T2 bannings so far has been an artifact of some kind, and those are the hardest thing for them to template and balance, being outside of the color wheel. I'd say for every few hundred that are sub par or may see play, 1 or two broken ones is fine. It at least gives the casual kids something stupid to play with, as well as us "big guy" tourney players to keep attempting to break formats.

[Awesomator]

The deck is so consistant that it's really hard to mess up. The fact that 4 of their counters say "You Lose the Game" make it hard to draw counters out from your opponents. When Affinity came to type 2, a ton of terrible players started winning just because the deck was so powerful. Affinity was easy to play, but difficult to play well. This deck, probably the easiest and most powerful deck to take over. Bad players lose with even Goblins with good matchups because they make little mistakes. Not mulliganing aggressively is about the only big mistake they can make. Not knowing that you can counter for free and then use flash in the upkeep is one of the other possibly big mistakes, but it may not come up enough to stop the player from taking the match. The deck has only one goal, one basic target for each tutor, although certain conditions will call for certain cards, but it won't come up enough to make a big difference. Once FS becomes legal, the mirror will be much less about luck, but knowing when to combo off, still though a player can easily get lucky with the deck. Playing against non mirror matches, it's much easier to get lucky.

[DeathwingZERO]

I agree. As is, the deck is stupid degenerate. Even without the FS free search and counterspells, the deck is literally the most streamlined combo I have ever seen. You play one or two setup spells (if even needed), and the second the Hulk hits the graveyard, it's GG.

Personally, this combo would have a ton of trouble if it weren't for the fact that it was so tight on it's mana and kill conditions, that it is capable of packing all this disruption on it's own. In my opinion, this is literally the top of the line in combo control. Not only can you throw things like Daze and FoW at your opponents answers, you can use them to stall your opponents out long enough to sculpt your hand to what you want if your running behind on combo pieces.

[insertnamehere]

Ist turn Island, Petal, Sac petal for flash, drop hulk search for Karmic Guide and carrion feeder, bring back hulk, sac hulk for KiKi-Jiki, tap kiki=jiki targeting Karmic Guide bringing back the hulk, sac him and bring out sky hussar and win

[MattH]

MattH, you've seemed to miss the key aspects of Tinker, comparing Flash to it. These two cards are by no means ever in the same power level categories.

DeathwingZERO, you've completely missed the fact that I never said they were of comparable power. Try reading what I wrote again instead of what you wanted to see.

[Tacosnape]

And all I have to say is Benevolent Bodyguard.

Zomg. That's fucking tech in my Research build. That lets me Research for the combo -and- make it able to survive one STP.

Also, are we ever going to split this forum to make it where it's easy to focus on the development of the deck itself and not the question of degeneracy/solutions? We know it's broken, and we know it's not getting fixed yet.

[Di]

Ist turn Island, Petal, Sac petal for flash, drop hulk search for Karmic Guide and carrion feeder, bring back hulk, sac hulk for KiKi-Jiki, tap kiki=jiki targeting Karmic Guide bringing back the hulk, sac him and bring out sky hussar and win

Why even bother with Sky Hussar? It's an extra slot that is entirely unnecessary. You already have the win with Kiki Jiki, Karmic Guide, and Carrion Feeder, making infinate Karmic Guides and swinging in.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Why even bother with Sky Hussar? It's an extra slot that is entirely unnecessary. You already have the win with Kiki Jiki, Karmic Guide, and Carrion Feeder, making infinate Karmic Guides and swinging in.

You say that now, but watch until you get beat by double Thunderstaff.

(Unless you have opposing Thunderstaffs omgthunderstaffwars)


So, question. Why wouldn't you just run the Ravager + Shield Sphere/Phyrexian Walker combo? You never have to pass priority, so you're not exposing yourself to Swords, and even if they Children of Korlis or Gilded Light or some such, you still have an 8/8 on the board they have to deal with (more if you sac Petals to him).

[outsideangel]

You say that now, but watch until you get beat by double Thunderstaff.

(Unless you have opposing Thunderstaffs omgthunderstaffwars)

Don't forget double Caltrops!

I predict a Stax deck running 4x Thunderstaff and 4x Caltrops sweeping the metagame, absolutely owning Hulk, Goblins, and Fish in one, fell, mono-brown swoop.