help for hulk smash, sideboarding problems.

[effang]

Hello, i love hulk, and i almost always play it even if i can sleeve up slaver.

I'm wondering if people can give me some general and specific sideboarding advice.

Hulk is so tight, that there are very few cards that you can afford to take out, and I'm having problems making those decisions.

Firstly, i'm running BUG hulk, with 5x strips, and only b lotus, mox U, mox B, mox E (on colors)

3 Psychatog
4 Duress
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
1 gush
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Deep Analysis
3 Cunning Wish
3 Intuition
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring/Mana Crypt
1 mox blue
1 mox emerald
1 mox jet
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 flooded strand
4 wasteland
1 stripmine

1 oxidize
1 naturalize
1 BEB
1 Chain of Vapor
1 echoing truth
1 Deep Analysis
1 Coffin Purge
3 Ground seal
1 Berserk
1 FoF
1 Snuff Out
1 ghastly demise
1 diabolic edict (colossus)

first, what are the cuttable cards from the main deck?

deep analysis, when you are trying to race against aggro?
AK's when playing the mirror, or AK oath? (how many should i leave in, 1?
duress: decks that feature creature heavy land/mana accel heavy (5/3?)
cunning wish: instead of spending an additiona U2, just topdeck the answer from your deck?

the deck is so tight that it becomes inherently difficult for me to determine what is the best choice to cut.  mind you, i'm "inexperienced" in tournament play, thus seeking help.

CS slaver, welder based decks,
3 groundseal in, what goes out?
i would say duress, since you can't hit their creatures, and the only thing you would want to dump in the grave would be 4 TFK

stacks/5/3/anything with MWS

1 oxidize
1 naturalize

anti trinispshere

should i be boarding in any Seals? I know that they run welders, but the welders aren't a priority.  however if they get online i'm screwed also.

take out the cunning wishes? duress must stay to hit the trinisphere, COW.

finally one problem deck for me = oath...

board in 1 DA, board out XXX AK?
duress must stay, but how do i fit the bounce in?
and chain of vapor is surprisingly useless in this match, too many times i see my oath'd in tog bounced back and replaced with another spirit so that they may oath again...

thanks for all the help...

[Sanity_XIV]

Last time I took this deck to a tournament (Powerless) I was boarding out: the B2Bs I had main, the 3rd Intuition, the DAs, and the Fact or Fiction.

Also, Duress does NOT come out against Control Slaver. Cutting Wishes for answers is not good in this deck if you're only boarding in one or two answers. I would also say you don't need more than two bounce spells in the board, unless you plan to face a lot of Meandeck Oath, in which case you might want to bounce two creatures.

You might also consider that you don't really need the edict in there. It does deal with colossus, but so do Echoing Truth and Chain of Vapor. I think you might want to add Pernicious Deed to the sideboard as well, vs. aggro, when you board out DAs.

You can also sideboard the Gush out if it isn't being too helpful. After I took apart 4c Hulk I axed the Gush as well, but it might be good in the board to save lands from wastes.

Do not run Mana Crypt in this either.. unless you really want to go aggro. You might also try either: -1 Underground, +1 Tropical, just so if the tropical dies you don't need to topdeck mox/lotus.

[Berserk]

Your manabase seems very unbalanced. I wouldn't be running 5 fetches and 4 wastelands. I've found 4 fetches and 3 wastelands to run pretty smoothly. That leaves room to add in at LEAST one more Tropical Island, and maybe a 4th Underground Sea. Also, if you run Wastelands, Crucible of Worlds is always something to consider in your build  

[Rico Suave]

first, what are the cuttable cards from the main deck?

deep analysis, when you are trying to race against aggro?
AK's when playing the mirror, or AK oath? (how many should i leave in, 1?
duress: decks that feature creature heavy land/mana accel heavy (5/3?)
cunning wish: instead of spending an additiona U2, just topdeck the answer from your deck?

AK:
Some decks randomly stuff Intuition-AK into their decks, and while that's fine it doesn't mean jack if your opponent is using AK too and you're stuck with not just dead AK's, but dead Intuitions as well.  

In this case, if Tog is facing the AK mirror against one of those kind of opponents, it will Intuition for Deep Analysis.  This means that Intuition the card is still really good, but their Intuions and AK's are dead, leaving 6+ dead cards for them while you only have 4 and you're outdrawing them.

The reason I leave my AK's in is because if my opponent decides to use either Intuition or AK to try and catch up with my Deep Analysis, I will get to reap the rewards if they use their AKs first.  Usually, the person who casts AK last will draw the most cards and therefore win the card-draw war.  

Those are my experiences there.  Many decks however will not play into your AK's, and will instead use their Intuitions for tutoring, such as when Oath tutors for Forbidden Orchard.

Regarding Cunning Wish:
You have to keep in mind that this deck has a purpose - it wants to Berserk a Tog.  

I think your matches aren't determined by how well you can counter everything, but sometimes you just simply have to power up a Tog and attack.  It's about tempo.

That's why I don't think removing your primary access to Berserk is a good idea.  I think taking out Cunning Wish is a fine idea for other decks, but Tog really needs it.  I think of it as a combo deck, and one of the combo pieces is Berserk.

I can't help you out with any of your SB'ing though.  I'm not sure you'll find anything pleasant until you start splashing red, to be honest.  I found that when I added red, many of my biggest problems simply disappeared.  

Unfortunately,I never got a 4c Tog to work with strips, so in order to add red you'd have to drop the strips.  Is it worth it?  Well, you get more SB options so your matches improve, and on top of that you get more targets for Cunning Wish.  Personally, I think it's more in line with the direction Tog needs to go to succeed.

[effang]

Great, thanks that really helps.

One thing about strips, I really feel that they are so important in every matchup, however when I'm not utilizing strips to the fullest with first turn COW, or any COW lock, then it seems as if I should just not pursue it.  I have been thinking about adding back the rest of the off color power, and again, my reasoning goes, if i can't play the mana denial role as well as other decks dedicated then to it, I should just try to power out a faster tog.

Again, which decks are suitable to run strips? I've seen CS slaver run strips, and I've heard a lot of people mention strips in CS slaver.  Which control decks should utilize mana denial and which should forget about it? I think that's am important issue tha tpeople have not clearly addressed.

[Rico Suave]

Mana denial is a fine strategy.

Tog as a deck wishes to make Tog as big as possible.  In that light, I don't get why you would want to waste a land drop on a strip effect when you could instead use that land as an extra mana source to make your Tog bigger by casting spells.  That Island may give you an extra Brainstorm a turn earlier, or it may help to give you UU up instead of U1 (common problem with Wasteland), or that Island may just give you an extra spell off a Will.  The point being, strips don't fit in the theme of being able to pump up a Tog - the deck's primary purpose.  

What does Wasteland do for you?  It helps against Bazaars, Workshops, and maybe Fish I guess.  Personally, I would just SB properly for Bazaar decks (I think Coffin Purge was made for Intuition), get some Old Man for Fish, and perhaps instead of maindecking strips you could just maindeck some anti-Workshop cards.  I don't think maindecking artifact hate is a bad idea, nor is it a revolutionary concept.  Shaman has been maindecked in Tog before.

[onelovemachine]

I have to agree with Rico on your choice of strips in this deck.  The purpose of the deck build you have is confused.  It wants to kill lands with strip effects, and at the same time wants to be duressing and berserking a tog.  Bad synergy as Rico pointed out.  If you want to berserk a tog cut the strips and adjust the manabase.  If you want to control the game with crucibles either try a different deck or start from scratch with tog.  Attempt to ignore convention and make a control deck that wins with togs.  In every other format tog has been more controllish than it is in type one.  In type one you can timewalk, tog, berserk and kill so quickly what's the point of doing otherwise?  Unless that strategy isn't working: the decline of psychatog.  If you insist on killing lands and beating up workshops design a tog deck around it instead of fitting it into a tog deck.  

This thread is about your sideboard though; again I side with Rico.  Your choice of sideboarding cards in and out depends on you restructuring your maindeck.  IMO the best sideboard plans against the top bothersome decks include red.  As far as what generally comes out:
Against control, slaver or oath, you do NOT want to take out duress.  Duress is the stuff control matchups are made of.  Preemptive (sp?) countermagic is amazing.  Don't be fooled by slaver's big creatures, and goblin welders that you see when you duress.  Slaver is a control deck and doesn't enjoy having its counters or draw ripped out before it has the chance to use it.  Oath hates duress even more than slaver does.  Against oath I typically side out only one ak.  You play intuition that can get deep analysis as well as ak.  Their only draw (other than brainstorm) is in the form of intuitioning up ak's which will make you very happy when you can both randomly draw one of three or wish one up to draw 3+ cards.  

Rico, as far as maindecking artifact hate, do you think shaman is the card?  I am scared of maindecking something like rack and ruin because it is not versatile and very dead against non shop.  Any thoughts?