Necrohulk (just a name I gave the deck, its connections are obvious) is a deck I've been building for myself ever since I enjoyed the old Bubble Hulk deck in an old extended season. That deck used Through the Breach to cheat Protean Hulk into play, sacrifice it at end of turn and win the game with a following combo of cards. This is a deck that takes that one as roots and builds it into a legacy combo shell. The deck is fairly quick, with god draws for turn 1 kill and fairly common turn 2-3 regular draws. Of course the deck can be built a number of ways, sacrificing speed for consistency and protection or vice versa, its all personal preference. There is another developing primer for this combo found here under the name Hulk Rebirth, but the decks are so completely different that the only thing they share in common is the win condition. But I employ you too also check that deck out, while its not as fast as this one it definitely has merits.
Alright into the meat of the deck.. First off, the objective of the deck is too cheat a Protean Hulk into your graveyard by either drawing one and discarding it to an outlet or by casting Entomb and placing it there. From that point you return it too the battlefield with either of your 3cmc spells of Necromancy and Footsteps of the Goryo, then proceed to sacrifice it at the end of your turn and you win(ideally). Here is the combo by which you plan to win the game:
The Combo:
Step 1: Protean Hulk hits the graveyard.
Step 2: Resolving the triggered effect, search your library for Body Double entering the battlefield as a copy of the Protean Hulk in your graveyard and a sacrifice outlet, usually either Carrion Feeder or Viscera Seer.
Step 3: You sacrifice the pseudo Protean Hulk to the activated effect of your sacrifice outlet.
Step 4: Resolving the triggered effect again, you search your library for Reveillark and a kill condition, usually Mogg Fanatic but there are a couple options.
Step 5: You throw that Mogg Fanatic at your opponents dome.
Step 6: You sacrifice the Reveillark to your sacrifice outlet.
Step 7: Resolving the triggered effect you return Body Double, entering as a copy as the aforementioned Reveillark, and Mogg Fanatic to the battlefield.
Step 8: You again, throw that Mogg Fanatic at the opponents dome like a boss.
Step 9: You sacrifice the pseudo Reveillark to your sacrifice outlet.
Step 10: Resolving the triggered effect from the pseudo Reveillark happens after the Body Double that was playing dress-up has already entered the graveyard and returned to its normal powerless(literal and important) self. You then return the same Body Double, entering as a copy of Reveillark again, and glorious Mogg Fanatic to the battlefield. You may now return to Step 8 and repeat this process until you are satisfied.
The Deck:
Putting it all together, there are a couple choices you have to make with the deck and the consequences from there. Lets start with the
This is your basic core and starting point, it can change a lot depending on where you go from here. You can either leave them as singles to open slots in your deck, or add additional copies too increase consistency and fight through removal.
The two reanimation spells are pretty obvious, both are your strongest ways to get Protean Hulk into play and sacrificed at the end of turn. Bonus on Necromancy is that you can play it on their turn and win at the end of their turn. An important note on Necromancy is that even you know you may choose to cast it as an instant on your turn, the wording states it has to be cast during a time when sorceries couldn't to gain the effect of sacrificing it at the end of your turn. To for-fill this requirement, you simply announce you are moving into combat step. There is always a combat step, regardless if you own any creatures, the only steps that are skipped are the declare blockers and combat damage, as soon as you enter the declare attacks step and proceed to not cast any. BUT always remember that mana dissipates between phases, it doesn't come up often...but imagine a circumstance where you have one land that generates black mana and your hand is Dark Ritual,Dark Ritual, Entomb, Necromancy with nothing relevant in your graveyard. You cannot double ritual, get Protean Hulk into your graveyard and then use Necromancy in your combat phase to then bring it into play.
Summoner's Pact is quite strong as it gets your Protean Hulk for free on the turn your going off...but since it puts it directly into your hand, its definitely a lot harder and requires additional cards to get it into the graveyard and then into play.
Land base:
Here you basically have two options, either Rainbow lands or Fetches.
And then there is Fetches, this route is obviously not the “Budget” option. But it gives you access to cards like Daze and Brainstorm. This land base can change depending on what you have available, but generally your going to still want to run two to three Ancient Tomb along side your four to five Dual or Shock lands. Obviously dual lands are better, but if you only have shock lands its not the end of the world, I'd really try to get at least one dual land if you run Daze so you don't hurt yourself. The fetches afterwords can pretty much be anything non-white, as you'll want to have mostly singleton lands so you can get any color with every fetch. For example:
The most important choices out of this lot are the looters, the Faithless Looting and Careful study, which both help you get deeper into your deck while also pitching Protean Hulk into the graveyard. Running a number of these is suggested for sure.
And lastly, its the choice to run the Living Wish or not. Its a fantastic spell that really gets you your monies worth. But its slow, very slow. Its another tutor for your Protean Hulk, or any of your combo pieces you may have lost, or give you access too sideboard hate cards. Here is a small list of some of things you would pack in the sideboard:
For protection its your flex spots, some people like more discard and others like counter spells. Both have their merits.
Discard lets you see their hand gives you the most information while also hurting a lot of other combo decks attempting to race you. While a counter spell is a much more definitive “No” and stops almost everything that could stop your combo. Personally I prefer discard as you can try to get most of the problems out of their hand in the first couple turns and then go for the combo, whereas with counter spells you get too spend more mana on dig spells early but you have to keep mana open while in combo. Well sometimes, Daze and Force of Will are exceptions, and between the two I much prefer Daze. Force of Will is a stronger protection spell for sure, but you really don't have a endless supply of blue cards and if your digging with card disadvantage spells like Careful Study and Faithless Looting then you can't really afford it.
Alright so that’s basically where I've taken the deck solo, and I'm really looking for some input. This is just a pretty bones Primer, but it helped me look at the deck from an outside view.
Some things I really want to discuss about the deck:
-Is the Reveillark combo the strongest finish? It requires the least amount of deck space, but it has issues with some graveyard hate and exile removal.
-Is the wish board/tutor options in Living Wish strong enough? It definitely adds another 2-3 Protean Hulks into the deck and really helps if trying to combo a second time after getting stopped. But is it too slow? Is having access to hate cards for other combo decks relevant or just slowing you down to let them go off first?
-Should the deck find room for Gitaxian Probe if I'm playing with Cabal Therapy?
-Should the deck be running Xantid Swarm maindeck?
Thanks for taking the time to read about my pet deck!
With this card, does anyone know if you can "announce" moving into combat phase, even if you don't have any creatures in play, and then use it as an instant...and then sacrifice it at the end of your turn? Rather then have to play it at sorcery speed during your own turn?
I was at an FMN recently and I saw someone playing with sleeves that didn't have the "glossy" face that every other sleeve I've seen has. It was almost like "Smokey Glass" or something...it looks really cool and was much easier to see/read all the cards he was playing rather then moving your head to distort the reflecting light.
Does anyone know what sleeves these were? Or something similar? Really curious. Thanks!
The triple white in planar cleansing seems difficult to get. I know I sometimes struggle to come up with the colors I need at the moment I need them. I run a singleton Merciless Eviction which is ok and easier to cast, but still expensive. As others have said, you'd be better off with supreme verdict
Mugging seems like a weird choice, but I don't play the heavy-removal version. Did you find you just needed shocks 5-6?
I usually don't have trouble getting to 3 white by the time I'm on turn 7...sometimes it comes up but my version is so creature removal heavy that only clearing the board of creatures isn't all I need out of a card.
Mugging is just there as back up shocks to beat the decks worst matchup, which is "white weenie" decks like the current mono red and red/green decks. Which while none of these decks are generally white, they all play like the stereotypical white weenie decks. Play some small creatures, make them hit slightly harder and make them hard to block. Shock and Mugging are the only 1 mana removal spells that really help you on those first couple turns so that you don't die turn 4 to a Dynacharge. I might move one more Mugging to the sideboard though.
Since there is a Maze thread already, you don't really need to clog up the forum by having repetitive threads. People there will look at your list and give you feedback all the same.
My personal opinion is that your deck is trying to do too many things at once, the Angelic Accord plan and the Maze's End plan AND the Door to Nothingness feels pretty bloated. It makes a deck feel much more "streamlined" to focus on one win condition, maybe have one back up, in the maindeck and move the others to the sideboard. That said, why no Warleader's Helix if your going with the Accord plan? Seems like a perfect fit.
So I've been trying to find a build I like with assault loam, some things keeping me from building jund loam are a lack of IoK, thoughtseize and Liliana. But I've been wondering what people might think of something like this:
With a sideboard with more qasali against deck thats are vunerable, more lingering souls against jund, and some white "no" effects and maybe some duress against combo.
The mana base is definitely a little odd, but I don't have any budget for more fetches so I feel like its as strong as I can make it. I only have two tarmos so more of those are not going to happen either.
Does anyone think this will be solid? What are some changes I can make to improve some matchups? My current local meta as of the last FMN was couple storm, couple eggs, couple tron, a few merfolk, one pod, one twin, and a number of zoo decks.
Thanks for any advice.
edit: I do have 4 U/R fetch, probably worth tossing those in anyway?
It feels pretty greedy, but the synergies are just crazy. I know some people don't like Vial in these decks, but it lets this deck on the end of your opponents turn much more. I'd be willing to maybe try something else in the slot though.
I just really want to try and make something like this work.
This is my developing pet deck for legacy.
Introduction
Necrohulk (just a name I gave the deck, its connections are obvious) is a deck I've been building for myself ever since I enjoyed the old Bubble Hulk deck in an old extended season. That deck used Through the Breach to cheat Protean Hulk into play, sacrifice it at end of turn and win the game with a following combo of cards. This is a deck that takes that one as roots and builds it into a legacy combo shell. The deck is fairly quick, with god draws for turn 1 kill and fairly common turn 2-3 regular draws. Of course the deck can be built a number of ways, sacrificing speed for consistency and protection or vice versa, its all personal preference. There is another developing primer for this combo found here under the name Hulk Rebirth, but the decks are so completely different that the only thing they share in common is the win condition. But I employ you too also check that deck out, while its not as fast as this one it definitely has merits.
Alright into the meat of the deck.. First off, the objective of the deck is too cheat a Protean Hulk into your graveyard by either drawing one and discarding it to an outlet or by casting Entomb and placing it there. From that point you return it too the battlefield with either of your 3cmc spells of Necromancy and Footsteps of the Goryo, then proceed to sacrifice it at the end of your turn and you win(ideally). Here is the combo by which you plan to win the game:
The Combo:
Step 1: Protean Hulk hits the graveyard.
Step 2: Resolving the triggered effect, search your library for Body Double entering the battlefield as a copy of the Protean Hulk in your graveyard and a sacrifice outlet, usually either Carrion Feeder or Viscera Seer.
Step 3: You sacrifice the pseudo Protean Hulk to the activated effect of your sacrifice outlet.
Step 4: Resolving the triggered effect again, you search your library for Reveillark and a kill condition, usually Mogg Fanatic but there are a couple options.
Step 5: You throw that Mogg Fanatic at your opponents dome.
Step 6: You sacrifice the Reveillark to your sacrifice outlet.
Step 7: Resolving the triggered effect you return Body Double, entering as a copy as the aforementioned Reveillark, and Mogg Fanatic to the battlefield.
Step 8: You again, throw that Mogg Fanatic at the opponents dome like a boss.
Step 9: You sacrifice the pseudo Reveillark to your sacrifice outlet.
Step 10: Resolving the triggered effect from the pseudo Reveillark happens after the Body Double that was playing dress-up has already entered the graveyard and returned to its normal powerless(literal and important) self. You then return the same Body Double, entering as a copy of Reveillark again, and glorious Mogg Fanatic to the battlefield. You may now return to Step 8 and repeat this process until you are satisfied.
The Deck:
Putting it all together, there are a couple choices you have to make with the deck and the consequences from there. Lets start with the
Combo cards:
2 Protean Hulk
1 Body Double
1 Reveillark
1 Carrion Feeder
1 Mogg Fanatic
This is your basic core and starting point, it can change a lot depending on where you go from here. You can either leave them as singles to open slots in your deck, or add additional copies too increase consistency and fight through removal.
Combo Enablers:
4 Entomb
4 Necromancy
The two reanimation spells are pretty obvious, both are your strongest ways to get Protean Hulk into play and sacrificed at the end of turn. Bonus on Necromancy is that you can play it on their turn and win at the end of their turn. An important note on Necromancy is that even you know you may choose to cast it as an instant on your turn, the wording states it has to be cast during a time when sorceries couldn't to gain the effect of sacrificing it at the end of your turn. To for-fill this requirement, you simply announce you are moving into combat step. There is always a combat step, regardless if you own any creatures, the only steps that are skipped are the declare blockers and combat damage, as soon as you enter the declare attacks step and proceed to not cast any. BUT always remember that mana dissipates between phases, it doesn't come up often...but imagine a circumstance where you have one land that generates black mana and your hand is Dark Ritual,Dark Ritual, Entomb, Necromancy with nothing relevant in your graveyard. You cannot double ritual, get Protean Hulk into your graveyard and then use Necromancy in your combat phase to then bring it into play.
Summoner's Pact is quite strong as it gets your Protean Hulk for free on the turn your going off...but since it puts it directly into your hand, its definitely a lot harder and requires additional cards to get it into the graveyard and then into play.
Land base:
Here you basically have two options, either Rainbow lands or Fetches.
Rainbow lands will make sure you can always cast whatever you want, generally very rarely have an issue with mana. Very consistent. It will just be your basics, City of Brass, Gemstone Mine. Forbidden Orachard, and a couple Ancient Tomb as your Necromancy and Footsteps of the Goryo are conveniently both two colourless, this fits well.
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Forbidden Orchard
3 Ancient Tomb
And then there is Fetches, this route is obviously not the “Budget” option. But it gives you access to cards like Daze and Brainstorm. This land base can change depending on what you have available, but generally your going to still want to run two to three Ancient Tomb along side your four to five Dual or Shock lands. Obviously dual lands are better, but if you only have shock lands its not the end of the world, I'd really try to get at least one dual land if you run Daze so you don't hurt yourself. The fetches afterwords can pretty much be anything non-white, as you'll want to have mostly singleton lands so you can get any color with every fetch. For example:
3 Ancient Tomb
1 Volcanic Island
1 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
1 Taiga
1 Tropical Island
7 Fetch lands
Next up, lets look at the
Ramp Cards:
The decks combo actually has a very low required mana cost, one B for the entomb and 2B for the finisher. Not counting the Ancient Tomb[/cards] in the land section, the best options we have for immediate and sufficient ramp would be Dark Ritual and Lotus Petal. These both fit in nicely, especially Dark Ritual being able to ramp directly into the 3cmc reanimation spells. Other options include Chrome Mox, Simian Spirit Guide, Elvish Spirit Guide and basics like Birds of Paradise and Tinder Wall. What you feel is the best is up too you, the faster decks with less protection tend to run more while the slower decks with more dig and protection run less. Which brings me too the next section
The Dig:
There are a lot of great choices here in legacy, here is a couple that fit great in the deck:
1 Brainstorm
1 Careful Study
1 Faithless Looting
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Impulse
1 See Beyond
1 Living Wish
These are all great search spells that really help the deck form its combo, and again which ones and the number are personal preference.
Certain ones play with the deck a lot nicer, Brainstorm[/deck] lets you put combo pieces right back into your deck so that when you go off you don't have to worry about them being stuck in your hand. This is also the case for See Beyond but the mana cost is a bit of a turn off, as well as the sorcery speed. Ponder and [card]Preordain[/deck] are both very strong dig spells and will probably find some room in most decks.
The most important choices out of this lot are the looters, the Faithless Looting and Careful study, which both help you get deeper into your deck while also pitching Protean Hulk into the graveyard. Running a number of these is suggested for sure.
And lastly, its the choice to run the Living Wish or not. Its a fantastic spell that really gets you your monies worth. But its slow, very slow. Its another tutor for your Protean Hulk, or any of your combo pieces you may have lost, or give you access too sideboard hate cards. Here is a small list of some of things you would pack in the sideboard:
1 Protean Hulk
1 Xantid Swarm
1 Ingot Chewer
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Carrion Feeder
1 Mogg Fanatic
1 Reveillark
1 Body Double
1 Bojuka bog
1 Ethersworn Cannonist
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Kataki War's Wage
1 Yixlid Jailer
1 Drake Familiar
1 Kor Firewalker
1 Spellskite
Next up we have
Protection spells:
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Pact of negation
1 Force of Will
1 Daze
1 Spell Pierce
1 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
For protection its your flex spots, some people like more discard and others like counter spells. Both have their merits.
Discard lets you see their hand gives you the most information while also hurting a lot of other combo decks attempting to race you. While a counter spell is a much more definitive “No” and stops almost everything that could stop your combo. Personally I prefer discard as you can try to get most of the problems out of their hand in the first couple turns and then go for the combo, whereas with counter spells you get too spend more mana on dig spells early but you have to keep mana open while in combo. Well sometimes, Daze and Force of Will are exceptions, and between the two I much prefer Daze. Force of Will is a stronger protection spell for sure, but you really don't have a endless supply of blue cards and if your digging with card disadvantage spells like Careful Study and Faithless Looting then you can't really afford it.
A sample decklist:
2 Protean Hulk
1 Reveillark
2 Body Double
2 Carrion Feeder
1 Mogg Fanatic
Enablers:
4 Entomb
4 Necromancy
3 Footsteps of Goryo
Ramp:
4 Dark Ritual
Dig:
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Faithless Looting
4 Living Wish
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Duress
Land base:
3 Wooded Foothills
1 Steam Vents
1 Blood Crypt
1 Breeding Pool
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 City of Brass
1 Gemstone Mine
3 Ancient Tomb
Alright so that’s basically where I've taken the deck solo, and I'm really looking for some input. This is just a pretty bones Primer, but it helped me look at the deck from an outside view.
Some things I really want to discuss about the deck:
-Is the Reveillark combo the strongest finish? It requires the least amount of deck space, but it has issues with some graveyard hate and exile removal.
-Is the wish board/tutor options in Living Wish strong enough? It definitely adds another 2-3 Protean Hulks into the deck and really helps if trying to combo a second time after getting stopped. But is it too slow? Is having access to hate cards for other combo decks relevant or just slowing you down to let them go off first?
-Should the deck find room for Gitaxian Probe if I'm playing with Cabal Therapy?
-Should the deck be running Xantid Swarm maindeck?
Thanks for taking the time to read about my pet deck!
My objective is too use the spell during my turn and have the creature sacrificed at the end of my turn, does this work? Thanks for the help!
With this card, does anyone know if you can "announce" moving into combat phase, even if you don't have any creatures in play, and then use it as an instant...and then sacrifice it at the end of your turn? Rather then have to play it at sorcery speed during your own turn?
Thanks!
Maybe I'll just hope to run into that guy again, and ask him which ones hes using. They were really cool.
Unless I got trolled and MAT sleeves are not the same as Matte sleeves...haha.
Does anyone know what sleeves these were? Or something similar? Really curious. Thanks!
But thats probably terrible heh.
Omenspeaker probably fits here for a bit of dig/defense
I usually don't have trouble getting to 3 white by the time I'm on turn 7...sometimes it comes up but my version is so creature removal heavy that only clearing the board of creatures isn't all I need out of a card.
Mugging is just there as back up shocks to beat the decks worst matchup, which is "white weenie" decks like the current mono red and red/green decks. Which while none of these decks are generally white, they all play like the stereotypical white weenie decks. Play some small creatures, make them hit slightly harder and make them hard to block. Shock and Mugging are the only 1 mana removal spells that really help you on those first couple turns so that you don't die turn 4 to a Dynacharge. I might move one more Mugging to the sideboard though.
My personal opinion is that your deck is trying to do too many things at once, the Angelic Accord plan and the Maze's End plan AND the Door to Nothingness feels pretty bloated. It makes a deck feel much more "streamlined" to focus on one win condition, maybe have one back up, in the maindeck and move the others to the sideboard. That said, why no Warleader's Helix if your going with the Accord plan? Seems like a perfect fit.
20 Gates
4 Maze's End
3 Others, testing different colors.
Creatures
4 Gatecreeper Vine
4 Saruli Gatekeepers
4 Shock
3 Mugging
3 Warleader's Helix
2 Putrefy
3 Far/Away
2 Planar Cleansing
4 Urban Evolution
2 Devour Flesh
1 Elixer of Immortality
Does anyone have any decent budget ideas? Thanks!
4 Bloodbraid Elf
2 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
Instants/Sorceries: 21
4 Lightning Helix
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Life from the Loam
3 Faithless Looting
3 Path to exile
2 Ravens Crime
1 Lingering Souls
3 Seismic Assault
Lands: 26
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Arid Mesa
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Stomping Ground
3 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Blood Crypt
1 Godless Shrine
2 Treetop Village
2 Forest
2 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Swamp
With a sideboard with more qasali against deck thats are vunerable, more lingering souls against jund, and some white "no" effects and maybe some duress against combo.
The mana base is definitely a little odd, but I don't have any budget for more fetches so I feel like its as strong as I can make it. I only have two tarmos so more of those are not going to happen either.
Does anyone think this will be solid? What are some changes I can make to improve some matchups? My current local meta as of the last FMN was couple storm, couple eggs, couple tron, a few merfolk, one pod, one twin, and a number of zoo decks.
Thanks for any advice.
edit: I do have 4 U/R fetch, probably worth tossing those in anyway?
I also REALLY like Blackguard and Prowler and was curious if anyone tried something along the lines of :
3 Faerie Impostor
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Dark Confidant
3 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Nightshade Stinger
4 Oona's Prowler
4 Oona's Blackguard
2 Mistblade Shinobi
3 Mana Leak
2 Spell Pierce
Artifacts: 4
4 Aether Vial
Lands: 23
23 Lands (TBD)
It feels pretty greedy, but the synergies are just crazy. I know some people don't like Vial in these decks, but it lets this deck on the end of your opponents turn much more. I'd be willing to maybe try something else in the slot though.
I just really want to try and make something like this work.
Any suggestions?