[deck] T1 hulk smash

[exit music]

I've done a little bit of work, recently, on an updated Hulk Smash deck for Vintage. I was having some pretty solid results, but an even more exciting prospect lead me in its direction. Since I really think this deck has potential, I’m going to post it/explain it and then hopefully you guys can discuss/make some improvements.

3c Hulk Smash

Draw: 18
4 Brainstorm
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Intuition
3 Deep Analysis
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Fact or Fiction

Tutor: 3
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor

Disruption: 9
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
1 Echoing Truth

Win: 5
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Tinker
1 Recoup
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Burning Wish

Mana: 25
6 Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Tolarian Academy

10 SoLoMoxCryptVaultPetal

Okay - the first thing to address is this: Psychatog is a bad win condition. To go lethal with Tog, you normally have to use Cunning Wish > Berserk, which uses up valuable slots in the MD and SB. Tog, in the early game, is a much less efficient version of Tinker against aggro decks, and total shit against Control strategies. Because of all these reasons, Mr. Teeth loses his “Hulk� nametag and it’s been pinned on Mr. DSC himeslf. If you’re skeptical about this, just try to forget about it - the rest of the deck is actually the win condition.

The draw engine here is ridiculous. In a format full of Wastelands + Smokestacks + Sphere, I really don’t like having to get all the way up to 4 mana to cast a Gifts Ungiven. Intuition is the true draw machine for this deck. It acts very much like Gifts does in Gifts decks, but I’m going to say that 3 mana is better than 4 mana. In the Gifts match, you should be able to pump out an Intuition by the second turn - let me remind you that 3 Deep Analysis lets you draw 8 cards in total. Considering that their best Gifts against you includes only 2 broken draw spells, and they do all of this much slower than you, I really like the way Intuition looks against Gifts.  The Intuition > Deep Analysis draw engine is pretty much what defines this deck.

Intuition also allows you to run the incredibly powerful sleeper from Odyssey: Recoup. I think Vintage has to admit that it really missed this card for the longest time. The whole debate over win conditions in Gifts is highly irrelevant; Yawgmoth’s Will and Recoup (and Tinker) are the win condition in that deck. The thing that deals 20 damage has almost nothing to do with how it assembled.

You will also notice that I am not running Accumulated Knowledge. The problem with AK is that it is less counter resistant than Deeps, and alone, they are total shit. In to replace them are the freaking unbelievable, Merchant Scroll. Its primary function is to fetch you an Ancestral Recall on the first turn. It also allows you to consistently fetch your MD piece of bounce and it also lets you switch roles into the Aggro Tinker deck by fetching a Mystical Tutor.

If you play in a Stax Heavy metagame, you should probably take out either an Intuition or the Vamp Tutor for a Rebuild. Echoing Truth has proved to be the best utility piece of bounce that can be run in the maindeck. Burning Wish primarily acts as Tendrils of Agony when you are going for a Storm kill, but it can also fetch used Deeps, it helps you chain Time Walks when going off, and it can fetch silver bullet answer cards in the sideboard.

This hulk deck really improves on the old hulk’s bad matchups. Fish has become very easy; you just let the deck goldfish for 4 turns, and then you can generally combo them out, or wait around while they don’t do very much, and then combo them out. Watch out for Rootwater Thiefs - remember to Intuition for Burning Wish and Will so you can combo off at your leisure.

The mana base is very hard to disrupt - 6 basic lands and 4 fetches means that you should normally be able to get up to 3 or 4 mana in the early game without even thinking about Wasteland. This really helps against Fish, Oath and Stax - and I guess any other deck that relies on Wasteland to slow you down in the early game.

Even after winning some incredible games and matches with this deck in testing, I have since moved on, so this is all I can say about the deck. I really hope that someone will like the way this deck runs and tweaks out the deck’s flaws, because it has some serious potential.