I do think that the killing dorks use for WB can be useful, it is definitely a case where WB would be better than Melira combos, it's just generally been my experience that being able to combo through null rod is more valuable than having a niche use case for one of the combo pieces.
Melira Scarecrow is just as reslient to removal, Safekeeper is the default fetch whenever another utility piece isn't needed, so I call them the same on that point. I'm just not sure how live Mikaeus actually is outside of hulk lines in any deck really, and I'm not sure a deck could actually make him into a not-dead draw without significantly sacrificing the main gameplan.
Good to hear! I'm still a bit skeptical about Mike+Ball in a Tasigur list; I don't know what your list looks like, so I won't talk about yours specifically, but the general idea for me was that I pretty much never found Mikaeus to do anything on its own, and by switching to Melira lines, you're trading one more card slot for much more castable combo pieces, and, more importantly, you're no longer vulnerable to Null Rod, which opens up playing Null Rod yourself into artifact heavy metas.
Delver is pretty useless in Varolz now that Mikaeus is no longer a combo piece; it used to be that you could do triple hulk shenanigans by giving the delver undying and doing stupid stuff with that, but even at that time I wasn't a fan,
A) because Body Snatcher is pretty much 100% better 1-for-1 here due to the ability to do stuff with discarding (Getting hulk/a combo piece into grave), getting an extra cmc with it off of a hulk trigger (Sylvan Safekeeper + Viscera Seer without Varolz on board, or Golgari Thug/Kraul Harpooner stuff with him already in play), and just hitting for less off of naus.
B) because there's not really a need for a second hulk doubler once you already have one; I could probably count the total number of times where I would have wanted a second hulk doubler on one hand, and this is over at least 200 games, which were only tracked in 2017 so probably another 50 or so on top of that in the past year.
Since Protean Hulk's unbanning, there have been numerous decks popping up trying to take advantage of the compact and powerful combos that it allows. The build that most people gravitated towards was the classic cephalid breakfast combo, which basically uses Protean Hulk to mill your deck with protection, then win after you've done that. These decks are very powerful, because their colour identities allow you to play Flash + Protean Hulk and allow you to fit Grand Abolisher into your Protean Hulk line, among other cards.
BG Does not have any of these things; What we do have however, is a Varolz, the Scar-Striped in the command zone.
Due to the nature of Protean Hulk, you need to do two things, first, get hulk, and second, get it to the graveyard. Varolz, the Scar-Striped eliminates half of this problem by always having a way to get hulk into the graveyard once it's on the board, due to his second ability, which means that the entire deck can be dedicated to just getting Protean Hulk onto the battlefield.
A deck for spellslingers (We're not casting a whole lotta spells, we're only casting a couple that win the game)
Flexible (You're looking to resolve a single combo, and that's the only goal of the deck)
One of the main things that this deck has going for it, is that many of the lines to hulk don't put the hulk itself in a vulnerable position, which means that you can find another way later in the game and attempt to win again, there are times when you will have a Natural Order countered, and will be able to try again the next turn with a reanimate plan, because nobody ever had access to your hulk except for you.
The deck is also very resilient to many stax effects that are typically played against fast combo; because you only really need to cast 3/4 cards at maximum to win the game, sphere effects are significantly worse against you versus the rest of the fast combo field. This also applies to rule of law effects, as you can just cast a Pattern of rebirth and win in one shot, or end-of-turn Entomb into a reanimate on your turn to win.
Your main weakness as a fast combo deck, is, as always, running out of gas. There will be games where you will have an attempt at a win foiled, and will never come back from it. There will be games where someone drops a turn 1 Rest in peace, and you never find the answer to it. There will be games that somebody casts Linvala, keeper of silence and locks you out of the game. There are games where Sidisi or Grenzo go first, and they win before you can do anything. These are all things that will happen, and they are things that you need to be aware of if you are playing the deck. Learn what you can and cannot deal with, politic with the table, and know what you are getting into. I would not suggest playing this deck if your meta is fully prepared for hulk, or is infested with stax and control players. That being said, some of the most satisfying games to win are those that you have been locked out of since turn 1, and made a comeback nobody expected.
Getting To The Hulk
At this point, you may be asking
"Well that might good and all, but to get to that combo you have to have a 7-mana creature ANDVarolz, the Scar-Striped out at the same time? That seems pretty difficult."
And normally, you would be correct, but you may be forgetting that we are in Green and Black, the two colours that do unfair things involving creatures the best.
Being Unfair In Green
Green has a few options for cheating a green creature out of the deck, or at least getting to a creature in general. The premier cards for this in this deck though are Natural Order and Pattern of Rebirth, which, when paired with a mana dork and Varolz, the Scar-Striped, are both direct lines to get to Protean Hulk. These are both very on-plan for us, as with the aforementioned mana dork, we can power these out on turn 3 with Varolz, the Scar-Striped already on the board, and threaten a win right there.
Being Unfair In Black
Black has a lot more options to cheat creatures out of the deck, or, more accurately, cheat creatures out of the graveyard, but Entomb or Buried Alive turn that into a cheat out of the deck.
Being Unfair In General
Since the recent update to the deck, there are even more ways to get Protean Hulk into the grave, and they're a bit convoluted sometimes. Now that cards like Worldly Tutor, Sylvan Tutor, and Summoner's Pact are in the deck, we need ways to dump Protean Hulk into grave from either our hand, or the top of our library, which is where we can use cards like Thoughtseize, Cabal Therapy, and Collective Brutality to pitch hulk out of our hand. To get Protean Hulk off of the top of our deck, we run some cards that may look bad but actually serve valuable roles in the deck. Because we have 4 topdeck tutors in the deck, we're now also running Grim Flayer(He's like a Dark Confidant that also entombs!).
GGGBB3
Tutor Protean Hulk, then discard it to tutor Body Snatcher for each of these lines, if you already have hulk in hand, these lines will cost G less
Sometimes, things are not perfect, or one of the lines mentioned in the last section will not get you there on its own, in that case, you may need to use an alternate line. This is a list of possible hulk piles that you may need to use. In order to use these piles, you will need to use Body Snatcher in order to get back your Protean Hulk and get to your win. Keep in mind, Body Snatcher's first ability is NOT a replacement effect, it is a triggered ability, this means that while that ability is on the stack, you can sacrifice it and use its second ability to reanimate Protean Hulk, thereby bypassing the need to discard a creature if needed.
Using body snatcher's first ability to discard the card stuck in hand, then sacrificing Golgari Thug to put that card on top of the library, so the next hulk trigger can get it in a pile
This is sort of tricky, but if you use Natural Order or Pattern of Rebirth to get hulk into play, and then you sacrifice it, it doesn't matter if an opponent uses their exile effect on the Protean Hulk or not, if they do, you get your regular pile and kill them anyway, if they hold it to try to hit part of the combo, you get Body Snatcher + Phyrexian Revoker, and, this is key, because you name a card for Phyrexian Revoker *as* it enters, not *when* it enters, they never get a chance to use their grave hate before you can name it with Revoker
Varolz's gameplan is pretty straightforward: Get hulk on the board, get it to die. To this end, you're pretty much always just going to be looking to set up some way to cheat hulk into play, through any of the avenues I've laid out. The turn sequencing of cheating hulk into play and winning with it generally looks something like this:
So generally when you're looking at keeping opening hands, make sure you're looking at a hand that has a reasonably likely chance of doing that stupid thing by turn 3 or 4. A good opening hand composition is gonna look something like;
Many people will tell you that Phyrexian Delver is the better card out of these two, and normally, that is true, it allows you to get a full 3rd hulk after getting Mikaeus the Unhallowed out, due to the undying trigger, but this leaves two things that I find unsatisfactory, A. the fact that you can only get 1 CMC worth of creatures off of the first hulk if you are running Phyrexian Delver, which means you cannot combo if you have a combo piece in your hand or exile, and B. We don't want to run Mikaeus the Unhallowed lines because they lose to Null Rod. Body Snatcher on the other hand does not have either of these downsides, at the cost of having to be sacrificed before the first trigger resolves, and it cannot make a 3rd hulk, because it needs to be sacrificed to reanimate. Well, we don't really need the 3rd hulk if we can fit the extra 1 CMC of creatures into a hulk with it, and we have a sacrifice outlet in the command zone.
It's not very often you see an Ad Nauseam in hulk decks, or any reanimator decks at all for that matter, but it really does work, there are only 6 cards in the entire deck with >3 CMC, with one of those being Ad Nauseam itself. The average non-land CMC of the deck is at 1.64 at the time of writing, which means that doing the math of (68 nonlands * 1.64 avg nonland cmc)/99 = 1.126 per card, which means you are getting around 30 cards per Ad Nauseam, and since there are ways of winning off of hulk, even with a combo piece in your hand, it means that Ad Nauseam is very much worth it in the deck. This card is also the reason why taking damage and average CMC is such a big deal in the deck, because every point of damage taken is a card not drawn.
Some people do not like filter lands. I am not one of those people. In a deck where your dorks produce G and you need B for reanimation plays, this card is an all star.
In B/G, you do not have a ton of ways to interact with the stack, so these cards are here to interact before anything even hits the stack. Use these cards to strip countermagic and hate before you combo, not to proactively to hate on other players; if pointing these at someone doesn't increase your personal chances of winning, there's 0 reason to cast them. Targeted discard also pulls double-duty in reanimator decks, as they allow us to point them at ourselves to get reanimation targets out of our hands and into the grave, where we can get them to the board from much more efficiently.
A new addition that is currently in testing, hits our Ad Nauseam a bit and is a tad expensive, but makes up for it in flexibility and raw power. In the best case scenario, this discards a hulk stuck in hand, kills a hatebear, and strips hate out of an opponent's hand. Fail case, this is a 2 mana hatebear killer, or a 2 mana duress, not horrible at all.
Just wasn't doing what I wanted it to in the deck, with the inclusion of Summoner's Pact, it may make its way back in, but I'm doing without it right now.
This deck very much wants a dork on turn 1, and they just aren't there, these get in the way of your Varolz turn, and don't provide enough mana to compensate you for the tempo lost on casting them.
These have been cut as a side-effect of not running Phyrexian Delver, as there is no way to fit them into a hulk line, and they simply cost too much to reasonably be casting when you are winning the game, they also raise the aCMC for Ad Nauseam. Look for their replacements in Caustic Caterpillar and Golgari Thug
Beast within is a great card, we all know it, but unfortunately, we are not stax, and we are not Selvala, heart of the wilds. It just costs too much for us to be happily casting, and the fact that it is 3cmc also hurts our Ad Nauseam, so as painful as it may be, we have to say goodbye for now to our good friend.
Stax effects really just aren't where you want to be with this deck, it never feels good to spend 2 mana on a card like this, when you could be furthering your own win condition. For this reason, I am also not playing stax effects, even if they don't affect the deck at all.
These have been considered, and some pilots may like to have the extra protection, however, in my experience, these are too much mana to be worth playing. Varolz consistently runs tight on mana requirements to win early, and he doesn't produce any more mana than what you have at the start of your combo. Even without these protection pieces, if you play correctly and time your win and interaction properly, you should still be coming out on top.
Actually a bit slow for the deck, if you're going turn 1 dork -> turn 2 varolz, it doesn't afford you much time or mana to actually use it efficiently, it does smooth out every turn after those, but those are going to be the key turns when you're looking to have action in your mulligans
I actually highly suggest both of these for potential budget builds or more midrange builds, but because this is a budgetless balls-to-the-wall build, I'd much rather be playing higher-powered draw like ad nauseam or necropotence, or just be playing tutors instead. You are also looking to win before running out of gas becomes an issue generally, so they're not as good here as they are in a Doomsday deck, because they can't serve the dual-purpose of cracking a pile.
This cut hurt a lot, but I realized that I was never using it to clear more than 1 creature at a time, with a life cost, and a cost of killing my own board, so I've cut it to lower the curve for Ad Nauseam, and more streamlined removal. Still playable in a creature-heavy meta.
Varolz's matchups are pretty one-dimensional, does it have countermagic and/or grave hate? It's gonna bit a rough ride if there's more than one in the pod. Does nobody have good interaction or grave hate? Have fun, cause it's gonna be a good ol' race.
At a bit of a more serious level, the average pod is usually going to have something like a Teferi, Consultation, or really any reasonably interactive blue deck, which means you're gonna have to flex your thinking muscles a bit. It can be rough to play against these decks, but a lot of success against them is gonna come from knowing your lines, and picking your spots correctly, which is just going to come from experience and intuition. Against these interactive blue decks, a key thing to remember is that you do have access to instant speed wins, which are super relevant, which lets you sneak a win in while everybody else thought it was okay to tap down.
Against pretty much everything else, the game plan is gonna be the same, and it's gonna be about the same matchup, you're just looking to slip a win in as fast as possible; you're not built to go into the late game that well, and you're generally gonna be up there in speed, so you should have a pretty good chance at winning a racing game.
As always, thanks to the cEDH Discord, where you can come ask questions to myself and the other amazing members of the staff, if you want to talk more about hulk specifically, make sure to check out the hulk discord, mostly for WUBG hulk, but also for other flavors.
Super delayed update here, Final Parting is an obvious inclusion that just wins the game for 6 mana with Varolz on the board, a very welcome new inclusion.
Swapping Sylvan Tutor into the sideboard for Mindblade Render, which is basically another dark confidant in the deck, especially because Varolz is a warrior. This swap should have been made when BBD was released, but it accidentally never was, so now it's being made.
With the advent of GRN, there are two new cards that have been added to the list:
Mausoleum Secrets is the best tutor for us that's been printed for us in a looooong time, and works toward solving our largest problem: tutor density. By just sacrificing a dork to Varolz, it lets us tutor entomb, which is almost always the card that we want to have. This is an autoinclude, and I'm currently slotting it in over Phyrexian Revoker , as it's probably the worse slot in the deck overall currently, although in a meta full of Faerie Macabres and one-shot grave hate, you may still want it.
Assassin's Trophy is one hell of a removal card, that is pretty much a strict upgrade to Vendetta, as the 1 more mana is more than worth it, having an extra slot that can remove Rest in Piece, as well as stuff like Aven Mindcensor, and even Tabernacle is way too good to pass up.
Minor change: Bojuka Bog subbed out for Phyrexian Tower , having a sac outlet out of Crop Rotation has opened up more lines than I realized after testing, and has been working well for me.
Sinister Concoction has been dropped to make the available slot needed for the new hulk package.
Big 'Ol deck update; A lot of changes in ideology and card choices, with a primer update forthcoming, stay tuned! The big big change is the introduction of more discard on command effects and creature tutors to effectively give the deck more "Build-Your-Own-Entomb"s.
Since Protean Hulk's unbanning, there have been numerous decks popping up trying to take advantage of the compact and powerful combos that it allows. The build that most people gravitated towards was the classic cephalid breakfast combo, which basically uses Protean Hulk to mill your deck with protection, then win after you've done that. These decks are very powerful, because their colour identities allow you to play Flash + Protean Hulk and allow you to fit Grand Abolisher into your Protean Hulk line, among other cards.
BG Does not have any of these things; What we do have however, is a Varolz, the Scar-Striped in the command zone.
Due to the nature of Protean Hulk, you need to do two things, first, get hulk, and second, get it to the graveyard. Varolz, the Scar-Striped eliminates half of this problem by always having a way to get hulk into the graveyard once it's on the board, due to his second ability, which means that the entire deck can be dedicated to just getting Protean Hulk onto the battlefield.
What Varolz Is
What Varolz Isn't
One of the main things that this deck has going for it, is that many of the lines to hulk don't put the hulk itself in a vulnerable position, which means that you can find another way later in the game and attempt to win again, there are times when you will have a Natural Order countered, and will be able to try again the next turn with a reanimate plan, because nobody ever had access to your hulk except for you.
The deck is also very resilient to many stax effects that are typically played against fast combo; because you only really need to cast 3/4 cards at maximum to win the game, sphere effects are significantly worse against you versus the rest of the fast combo field. This also applies to rule of law effects, as you can just cast a Pattern of rebirth and win in one shot, or end-of-turn Entomb into a reanimate on your turn to win.
Your main weakness as a fast combo deck, is, as always, running out of gas. There will be games where you will have an attempt at a win foiled, and will never come back from it. There will be games where someone drops a turn 1 Rest in peace, and you never find the answer to it. There will be games that somebody casts Linvala, keeper of silence and locks you out of the game. There are games where Sidisi or Grenzo go first, and they win before you can do anything. These are all things that will happen, and they are things that you need to be aware of if you are playing the deck. Learn what you can and cannot deal with, politic with the table, and know what you are getting into. I would not suggest playing this deck if your meta is fully prepared for hulk, or is infested with stax and control players. That being said, some of the most satisfying games to win are those that you have been locked out of since turn 1, and made a comeback nobody expected.
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Diamond
1 Sol Ring
Creature
1 Apprentice Necromancer
1 Arbor Elf
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Body Snatcher
1 Boreal Druid
1 Caustic Caterpillar
1 Dark Confidant
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Disciple of the Vault
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Elves of Deep Shadow
1 Elvish Mystic
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Golgari Thug
1 Grim Flayer
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
1 Mindblade Render
1 Priest of Titania
1 Protean Hulk
1 Riftsweeper
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
1 Viscera Seer
1 Wingrattle Scarecrow
1 Animate Dead
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Dance of the Dead
1 Necromancy
1 Necropotence
1 Pattern of Rebirth
1 Survival of the Fittest
1 Sylvan Library
1 Utopia Sprawl
1 Wild Growth
Instant
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Autumn's Veil
1 Cabal Ritual
1 Crop Rotation
1 Culling the Weak
1 Dark Ritual
1 Entomb
1 Mausoleum Secrets
1 Nature's Claim
1 Rain of Filth
1 Shallow Grave
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Summoner's Pact
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Worldly Tutor
Land
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Blooming Marsh
1 Cavern of Souls
1 City of Brass
1 Command Tower
4 Forest
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Gemstone Caverns
1 Llanowar Wastes
1 Mana Confluence
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Polluted Delta
4 Swamp
1 Twilight Mire
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Buried Alive
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Collective Brutality
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Intent
1 Final Parting
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Grim Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Natural Order
1 Reanimate
1 Thoughtseize
1 Life // Death
Commander
1x Varolz, the Scar-Striped
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Jarad's Orders
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Sylvan Tutor
1 Toxic Deluge
The Wincon
Protean Hulk Is our win condition, yes, but what do we do once we've gotten it to die? The answer to that question is easy:
Getting To The Hulk
At this point, you may be asking
"Well that might good and all, but to get to that combo you have to have a 7-mana creature AND Varolz, the Scar-Striped out at the same time? That seems pretty difficult."
And normally, you would be correct, but you may be forgetting that we are in Green and Black, the two colours that do unfair things involving creatures the best.
Being Unfair In Green
Green has a few options for cheating a green creature out of the deck, or at least getting to a creature in general. The premier cards for this in this deck though are Natural Order and Pattern of Rebirth, which, when paired with a mana dork and Varolz, the Scar-Striped, are both direct lines to get to Protean Hulk. These are both very on-plan for us, as with the aforementioned mana dork, we can power these out on turn 3 with Varolz, the Scar-Striped already on the board, and threaten a win right there.
There are also a multitude of ways to get Protean Hulk into our hand, including Survival of the Fittest, Fauna Shaman, and Worldly Tutor.
Being Unfair In Black
Black has a lot more options to cheat creatures out of the deck, or, more accurately, cheat creatures out of the graveyard, but Entomb or Buried Alive turn that into a cheat out of the deck.
We play a multitude of these reanimate effects, including classics such as Reanimate, Animate Dead, and Necromancy.
Being Unfair In General
Since the recent update to the deck, there are even more ways to get Protean Hulk into the grave, and they're a bit convoluted sometimes. Now that cards like Worldly Tutor, Sylvan Tutor, and Summoner's Pact are in the deck, we need ways to dump Protean Hulk into grave from either our hand, or the top of our library, which is where we can use cards like Thoughtseize, Cabal Therapy, and Collective Brutality to pitch hulk out of our hand. To get Protean Hulk off of the top of our deck, we run some cards that may look bad but actually serve valuable roles in the deck. Because we have 4 topdeck tutors in the deck, we're now also running Grim Flayer(He's like a Dark Confidant that also entombs!).
These lines will all assume that you have Varolz, the Scar-Striped or Viscera Seer in play.
GG2 + Green creature on battlefield
- Natural Order
- Pattern of Rebirth
- Entomb + Reanimate + 7 Life
- Thoughtseize + Protean Hulk + Reanimate + 9 Life
- Cabal Therapy + Protean Hulk + Reanimate + 7 Life No Sacrifice Outlet Needed
- Entomb + Life // Death + 7 Life
- Entomb + Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead
- Entomb + Shallow Grave Instant Speed
- Thoughtseize + Protean Hulk + Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead + 2 Life
- Thoughtseize + Protean Hulk + Life // Death + 9 Life
- Cabal Therapy + Protean Hulk + Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead No Sacrifice Outlet Needed
- Cabal Therapy + Protean Hulk + Life // Death + 7 Life No Sacrifice Outlet Needed
- Buried Alive + Reanimate + 7 Life
- Entomb + Necromancy Instant Speed, No Sacrifice Outlet Needed
- Thoughtseize + Protean Hulk + Necromancy + 2 Life No Sacrifice Outlet Needed
- Cabal Therapy + Protean Hulk + Necromancy No Sacrifice Outlet Needed
- Body Snatcher + Protean Hulk
- Collective Brutality + Protean Hulk + Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead
- Buried Alive + Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead/Shallow Grave
- Buried Alive + Life // Death + 7 Life
- Collective Brutality + Protean Hulk + Necromancy No Sacrifice Outlet Needed
- Buried Alive + Necromancy No Sacrifice Outlet Needed
- Entomb + Body Snatcher
- Buried Alive + Body Snatcher
- Fauna Shaman + Reanimate + Protean Hulk + 1 Turn
- Survival of the Fittest + Reanimate + Creature in hand
- Survival of the Fittest + Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead + Creature in hand
- Survival of the Fittest + Shallow Grave + Creature in hand Instant Speed
- Fauna Shaman + Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead + Protean Hulk + 1 Turn
- Fauna Shaman + Shallow Grave + Creature in hand + 1 Turn Instant Speed
- Survival of the Fittest + Necromancy + Creature in hand Instant Speed, No Sacrifice Outlet Needed
- Fauna Shaman + Necromancy + Protean Hulk + 1 Turn Instant Speed, No Sacrifice Outlet Needed
- Survival of the Fittest + Creature in hand
- Fauna Shaman + Creature in hand + 1 Turn
G3 + Creature on battlefield
BB
BB1
BB2
BB3
BB4
BBB2
BBB4
GGB1
GGGB2
Tutor Protean Hulk, then discard it for each of these lines, if you already have hulk in hand, these lines will cost G less
GGGB3
Tutor Protean Hulk, then discard it for each of these lines, if you already have hulk in hand, these lines will cost G less
GGGBB3
Tutor Protean Hulk, then discard it to tutor Body Snatcher for each of these lines, if you already have hulk in hand, these lines will cost G less
Sometimes, things are not perfect, or one of the lines mentioned in the last section will not get you there on its own, in that case, you may need to use an alternate line. This is a list of possible hulk piles that you may need to use. In order to use these piles, you will need to use Body Snatcher in order to get back your Protean Hulk and get to your win. Keep in mind, Body Snatcher's first ability is NOT a replacement effect, it is a triggered ability, this means that while that ability is on the stack, you can sacrifice it and use its second ability to reanimate Protean Hulk, thereby bypassing the need to discard a creature if needed.
Case: Normal pile
- Wingrattle Scarecrow + Melira, Sylvok Outcast + Disciple of the Vault
- Body Snatcher + Sylvan Safekeeper + Dryad Arbor + 1 CMC Creature
- Body Snatcher + Caustic Caterpillar + 1 CMC Creature
- Body Snatcher + Viscera Seer + 1 CMC Creature
- Body Snatcher + Riftsweeper
- Body Snatcher + Golgari Thug
Using body snatcher's first ability to discard the card stuck in hand, then sacrificing Golgari Thug to put that card on top of the library, so the next hulk trigger can get it in a pile
- Body Snatcher + Phyrexian Revoker
This is sort of tricky, but if you use Natural Order or Pattern of Rebirth to get hulk into play, and then you sacrifice it, it doesn't matter if an opponent uses their exile effect on the Protean Hulk or not, if they do, you get your regular pile and kill them anyway, if they hold it to try to hit part of the combo, you get Body Snatcher + Phyrexian Revoker, and, this is key, because you name a card for Phyrexian Revoker *as* it enters, not *when* it enters, they never get a chance to use their grave hate before you can name it with Revoker
Case: Opponent has removal
Case: Opponent has Null Rod / Stony Silence / Another troublesome artifact or enchantment
Needs G1 to be used
Case: Varolz not on board
Case: Combo piece in exile
Case: Combo piece in hand or graveyard
Case: Grave hate that is an activated ability (Faerie Macabre, Deathrite Shaman, etc.) is available to an opponent
Varolz's gameplan is pretty straightforward: Get hulk on the board, get it to die. To this end, you're pretty much always just going to be looking to set up some way to cheat hulk into play, through any of the avenues I've laid out. The turn sequencing of cheating hulk into play and winning with it generally looks something like this:
So generally when you're looking at keeping opening hands, make sure you're looking at a hand that has a reasonably likely chance of doing that stupid thing by turn 3 or 4. A good opening hand composition is gonna look something like;
Notable Inclusions
Notable Exclusions
Varolz's matchups are pretty one-dimensional, does it have countermagic and/or grave hate? It's gonna bit a rough ride if there's more than one in the pod. Does nobody have good interaction or grave hate? Have fun, cause it's gonna be a good ol' race.
At a bit of a more serious level, the average pod is usually going to have something like a Teferi, Consultation, or really any reasonably interactive blue deck, which means you're gonna have to flex your thinking muscles a bit. It can be rough to play against these decks, but a lot of success against them is gonna come from knowing your lines, and picking your spots correctly, which is just going to come from experience and intuition. Against these interactive blue decks, a key thing to remember is that you do have access to instant speed wins, which are super relevant, which lets you sneak a win in while everybody else thought it was okay to tap down.
Against pretty much everything else, the game plan is gonna be the same, and it's gonna be about the same matchup, you're just looking to slip a win in as fast as possible; you're not built to go into the late game that well, and you're generally gonna be up there in speed, so you should have a pretty good chance at winning a racing game.
As always, thanks to the cEDH Discord, where you can come ask questions to myself and the other amazing members of the staff, if you want to talk more about hulk specifically, make sure to check out the hulk discord, mostly for WUBG hulk, but also for other flavors.
-Swamp
+Final Parting
Super delayed update here, Final Parting is an obvious inclusion that just wins the game for 6 mana with Varolz on the board, a very welcome new inclusion.
Swapping Sylvan Tutor into the sideboard for Mindblade Render, which is basically another dark confidant in the deck, especially because Varolz is a warrior. This swap should have been made when BBD was released, but it accidentally never was, so now it's being made.
With the advent of GRN, there are two new cards that have been added to the list:
Mausoleum Secrets is the best tutor for us that's been printed for us in a looooong time, and works toward solving our largest problem: tutor density. By just sacrificing a dork to Varolz, it lets us tutor entomb, which is almost always the card that we want to have. This is an autoinclude, and I'm currently slotting it in over Phyrexian Revoker , as it's probably the worse slot in the deck overall currently, although in a meta full of Faerie Macabres and one-shot grave hate, you may still want it.
Assassin's Trophy is one hell of a removal card, that is pretty much a strict upgrade to Vendetta, as the 1 more mana is more than worth it, having an extra slot that can remove Rest in Piece, as well as stuff like Aven Mindcensor, and even Tabernacle is way too good to pass up.
New combo line now subbed in, so we are finally saying goodbye to Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Walking Ballista, although they served us well. They've been replaced by Wingrattle Scarecrow, Melira, Sylvok Outcast, and Disciple of the Vault, which comprise our new hulk package. This win requires one more card, but it is well worth the new resistance to Null Rod, as we no longer have to activate Walking Ballista to win the game.
Minor change: Bojuka Bog subbed out for Phyrexian Tower , having a sac outlet out of Crop Rotation has opened up more lines than I realized after testing, and has been working well for me.
Sinister Concoction has been dropped to make the available slot needed for the new hulk package.
Big 'Ol deck update; A lot of changes in ideology and card choices, with a primer update forthcoming, stay tuned! The big big change is the introduction of more discard on command effects and creature tutors to effectively give the deck more "Build-Your-Own-Entomb"s.
-Duress
-Elvish Spirit Guide
-Exhume
-Jeweled Amulet
-Scavenging Ooze
-Toxic Deluge
-Wall of Roots
+Apprentice Necromancer
+Grim Flayer
+Grim Tutor
+Phyrexian Revoker
+Sinister Concoction
+Summoner's Pact
+Sylvan Tutor
-Summoner's Pact
+Collective Brutality