Hulks gameplan

[stuart johnson]

Hi,

I'm looking for some information more than anything else please. I recently proxied up the hulk smash deck used to win worlds and when I started playing some goldfish games it occured to me that I have no idea how the deck plays. Sure i'm familiar with the intuition-AK engine and the more complex type 1 plays but I can't seem to get my head around how the decks plays.

Ive been playing proxied keeper for just over a year now, and rate myself as a semi competant keeper player (Thanks to Rakso's 'you can play type 1 articales'), but hulk smash seems like it plays totally differently. Does it play combo or control? Does it play the slow or arggressive game? Just how aggro control is it? What are the most important plays for the deck and in what order of importance? I guess i'm asking for a primer or mini-primer for how hulk smash plays. Could anyone give me an explanation or refer me to a link which answers my question?

Learning how type 1 decks work is part of the joy of the format. Its so much more complex than anything type 2 or extended can offer

Thank you

Stuart Johnson\n\n

[Grand Inquisitor]

From the success I've had playing it, the deck attempts these tasks in said order:

Pro-Active
1) establish mana base (this includes fetching sea for duress and tutors early, and tropical/volcanic next, depending on which hoser you need to wish for)
2) establish draw engine (this is highly correlative to step 1)
3) once you have reached a critical mass of cards in hand and graveyard (re: tog food), drop tog and swing
4) supplement tog with wished for berserk if needed

Re-active
(Much of this depends on what you're playing against, but here's a hack at it)

vs. Combo
1) Find duress and FoW, brainstorm is key here
2) Set up draw engine in order to out counter their bombs

vs. Aggro
1) Survive early pressure
2) Use Tog as a psuedo abyss
3) Emphasis on draw engine is more critical as your life will be threatened before you can comfortably grow a killer tog.  Yawgmoth's Wil is big here, as is Pernicious Deed

vs. Control
1) Establish mana base
2) Deep Analysis is game breaker here.
3) Use consistency to wear out their counter wall


I'm keeping this simplistic and intuitive on purpose.  I'm sure more experienced Hulk players can add more.

Edit:
In response to "what makes this deck so good?"  Is that Hulk is extremely consistent.  It packs a very strong draw engine, and has a very flexible gameplan (it can adjust its speed of attack and defense to its opponent), while running few dead cards.

It is also difficult to hate, as its only real defining characteristics are that it is blue-based (REB's) and it draws cards (chains of mephistopheles).  There is very little out there that causes it to trade 2 or 3 for 1.\n\n

[Dante]

Here's some of my tournament reports playing hulk (and not losing a match).  maybe that will give you an idea of how to setup..

http://www.themanadrain.com/cgi-bin....;t=9705

http://www.themanadrain.com/cgi-bin....;t=9602


Dante