T1 Hulk on budget

[zamuli]

Here presents my Psycha deck, non-powered and non-competing on a hard-powered vintage zone, but still looks like a good start of a fine deck  8)

// Lands
4x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
2x Tropical Island
2x Uderground Sea
3x City of Brass
2x Volcanic Island
5x Island
1x Sol Ring
1x Lotus Petal  
1x Strip Mine

4x Accumulated Knowledge
3x Brainstorm
1x Sylvan Library
2x Deep Analysis

3x Cunning Wish
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Regrowth
1x Intuition

3x Psychatog

4x Force of Will
4x Counterspell
1x Misdirection
4x Duress
1x Mind Twist
1x Yawgmoth's Will
2x Pernicious Deed

// Sideboard
3x Red Elemental Blast
1x Blue Elemental Blast
1x Fire/Ice
3x Coffin Purge
1x Berserk
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Smother
1x Hurkyl's Recall
1x Stifle
2x Artifact Mutation

This is not the final version, I'm thinking of adding wastelands and maybe 2nd Intuition. This lacks speed, and against a good fast-mana control I often lose, and I think that the fault is the lack of Mana Drains..

I've tested against URphid, MB Chalice, Dragon, Sligh, RG Beats and Stompy. It seems that I can swing aggro decks easy, but control seems to be a problem. Any suggestions on that?

[Roxas]

City of Brass is crappy, and six fetchlands are a bit excessive.  More duals are necessary to have a more stable, less painful mana base.

-1 Polluted Delta
-3 City of Brass
+2 Tropical Island
+2 Underground Sea

Also, get rid of Mind Twist - you have no artifact acceleration or Mana Drains.  A fourth brainstorm is better in that slot.

-1 Mind Twist
+1 Brainstorm

Lastly, find room for another Pernicious Deed somehow.  You need the additional board control, since your deck is slower without Drains or Moxen.

[zamuli]

yes, the Brasses are just replacers for dual lands, and because I don't have those duals yet i use the extra fetchland to get them up more easily and setting up proper mana base faster. Mind Twist i think, shall go to SB and maybe a Smother out, if I'm to add an additional Deed.

Also I thought I could use Gorilla Shamans to balance the game against power decks (wich i don't often play against) and seletal scryings for drawing (again, not very powerful without drains)

[THENATE]

get rid of sylvan library and put in another intuition. but besides that for a budget deck try grow atog instead of hulk

[HuntedWumpus]

-2 deep (EWWWWW)

+1 Fact of fiction
+1 Brainstorm

Just as a thought. If i was playing budget i would Play Gat instead of Hulk. I have been working on one with a friend, and genreally the dryads are more effective in budget then the extra cards you get to run in HUlK. Try it out, and if you do move to gat, you wana cut your deeds and 1 tog. Play fact or fiction, even with just one its incredible.

Good Luck

[zamuli]

What about Sideboarding Fact or Fiction? I've tried it in MD, but when in my starting hand it is often a dead card until 4th turn eot, and agains control only if you have force backup. Tutoring it from my deck isn't so easy, but I seem to get access to my sideboard much better with Wishes.

If going to GAT, is 2 Dryads and 3 Atogs too much?

[Blitzbold]

If switching to GAT you want a higher number of Dryads than 'Togs.
4 Dryads + 2 'Togs seems to be nice for me. You should cut your Pernicious Deeds then.
Adding red would also be nice, since Gorilla Shaman and Fire/Ice are too good not to use and also help growing your Dryad.

[zamuli]

I proxied this thing up and it done quite well in my testings. This be the GAT version:

// Mana
    3 Tropical Island
    4 Polluted Delta
    4 Underground Sea
    1 Flooded Strand
    3 Volcanic Island
    2 Island
    3 Wasteland
    1 Strip Mine
    1 Sol Ring
    1 Lotus Petal

// Creatures
    2 Psychatog
    4 Quirion Dryad
    1 Gorilla Shaman

// Spells
    1 Mystical Tutor
    1 Merchant Scroll
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Intuition
    3 Cunning Wish
    1 Yawgmoth's Will
    4 Duress
    4 Accumulated Knowledge
    1 Fact or Fiction
    4 Brainstorm
    1 Fire/Ice
    4 Force of Will
    4 Counterspell

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Stifle
SB: 1 Fire/Ice
SB: 2 Artifact Mutation
SB: 1 Pernicious Deed
SB: 1 Diabolic Edict
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Gush
SB: 1 Berserk
SB: 3 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Vampiric Tutor

I also made changes to the sideboard, adding Gush and Tormods. The deck itself is now much more aggro-styled.

[Bram]

but besides that for a budget deck try grow atog instead of hulk

Yeah, or Sligh. Or he could play Pokemon. Seriously: comments like this one are not helpful. 'Play another deck' is a conclusion you might reach after testing different builds of the archetype you want to play.

So either help this topic's starter to improve his build providing some insight, or don't post here at all.

[HuntedWumpus]

There ya go, Much better than your previous build. I think Gat will perform a lot better for you than Hulk with your Budget Restraints. Go do some playtesting and get back to me/us. Your build looks very solid, simple, and playable. Well done on your budget Gat.

[Wollblad]

Generally, Hulk Smash can survive without power, but hardly without Mana Drain, so your choice to run GaT instead is probably correct. I would just like to point out one things about your build.

The strangest choice in your build is Counterspell which I don't think you should use at all. The power-versions sometimes use Mana Drain, but those are there also to provide acceleration and cannot be justified by the counter effect alone. There are two diffrent ways to go. One is the Strip/Waste way (which you are into in your build). In that case, Counterspell should probably be Stifle instead. Personally I think 4 is one too much, the last spot could for example be a Regrowth instead. The other way is to skip the Watelands and go for more speed. In that case the counterspell should be replaced by Daze. I have seen builds that use Daze, Fasbond and one Gush in main. In such a build Sleight of Hand is an option.

Good luck!

[Bram]

While I agree with most of what you said, you are mistaken about this:

The power-versions sometimes use Mana Drain, but those are there also to provide acceleration and cannot be justified by the counter effect alone.

Some of the most effectibe powered GroaTog builds ever used 2x Counterspell and zero Mana Drains. It was the ONE deck where counterspell was actually superior to Drain. You did need the countereffect alone, and had no mana sinks to speak of. Hence: counterspell in addition to an already annoyingly high level of permission (4x FoW, 2x Daze, 3x Misdirection which was actually good back then )

God, this thread really brings it back for me. How I loved that little deck...

[Wollblad]

@Kaervimon
In the decks from the times when Gush was not restricted, you are absolutly right. But back then, the card drawing and the speed came from Gush and Fastbond. GaT decks of today have different and more mana heavy draw engines and can seldom afford to leave UU open. In the case of Mana Drain you can, since it often gives you more tempo the next turn than you loose tempo to leave two mana unused. In the builds of today without Gush and Fastbond, I think counterspell slows you down too much.

[Bram]

In the decks from the times when Gush was not restricted, you are absolutly right.

Ah. See, now you got to the heart of the issue. I was in fact talking about the 4x Gush era. I sort of gave up on GAT after that, assuming TOG to be the better deck. I'll readily admit I haven't tested GAT since the restriction of Gush, but what you're saying seems to make sense (and it's consitent with the more or less accepted newer GAT lists I've seen) so I assume you're right

[zamuli]

you mean ill either buy mana drains or replace Counterspells (wich is easier) for example more card drawing? or maybe disruption?

i tested
- 4 counterspell
+ 1 Fire/ice
+ 1 Intuition
+ 2 Stifle
and it made quite well. Or then I could use 4 opts or some other good fast drawer (lim-dul's vault?) help would be appreciated.

[Metanoia]

I like the idea of adding Stifles and going the mana denial route, Now you have 4 Strips, 2 Stifles and 1 Shaman, that seems very strong in a powered meta.

I think Gush is almost always beter than FoF main, so I would switch those.

Also I'm not so sure on the power of Merchant Scroll without an Ancestral to fetch. But I can see how the Intuition/AK engine is very important to this deck.
On that issue i would like to say that when I was still unpowered I ran 4 Ophidians as a draw engine besides 1 Intuition and 4 AK.
If your meta is full of aggro I wouldn't recommend it, but in more controllish meta's this can be a very good idea. I know this is not a conversion you see very often but I had some nice results with, so give it a chance

Finally, 2 F/I seems a bit much, I would switch one of those for a Deed, which would also complement the mana denial theme. A Deed main had save my ass very often and I would never play without one.

Good luck!