Great job!

A+ you two.

Great primer--really considering this as an alternative to my current Oona build.

If you're playing tainted pact and thrasios, why not run lab maniac ? Unless you like just having only one win in using the loops.

check out my thrasios and tymna deck! its a hulk deck

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/tnt-hulk-loop-and-smash/

shadowmage See the "Notable Exclusions" and "Deck Modularity -> Alternate Wincons" section for LabMan discussion.

I'd also read the "Win Conditions" section -- there are 3 wincons: Copy/Scepter, Twister loops, Grace/Windfall.

Hi, what are your thoughts on intuition, LED and culling the weak. They seem like they would be quite good. Thanks for any advice!

Intuition is good but doesn't get us exactly what we want.

Lion's Eye Diamond enables explosive plays but is risky.

Culling the Weak gives burst mana bust gets rid of our mana sources for Scepter and Engine. Makes Ad Naus lines better.

Any of these are valid if they suit your playstyle. If you want your deck to be more Naus/Will focused, you could theoretically find slots for them all!

Jaceforlife17

First off, love the list and how compact it is.

As far as additional dorks go, what's your thoughts on Kiora's Follower? While it has the potential to be a bit slower, it gets dumb with and source that produces more than one mana as well as providing a blue mana symbol for Bloom Tender.

I run a Thrasios Scepter deck (Triton Weaver) which uses Freed from the Real as an alternate infinite mana outlet. It immediately combos with Bloom Tender, however I also use it with High Tide and either Follower or Arbor Elf. I know your thoughts on tide as a stand alone card, however I would be keen to get your thoughts on in inside the combo package. I do however run 10 Islands total to try and optimise it, so I understand there are differences between builds there too.

I have found a good overlap on combo pieces as well given that I also use Kiora's Follower to untap Birthing Pod which provides a one turn line from Thrasios through to Trinket Mage fetching Lion's Eye Diamond then into Auriok Salvagers.

Also with regards to Angel's Grace, how often are you finding you're casting Ad Nauseam with vs without it? I have found myself on the fence about AG for a while but have never been able to bring myself to run it given the deck, so it would be good to get some more opinions.

enpc

I'll go in order so we keep our thoughts straight haha.

Re: Kiora's Follower - We don't play this one since it's a 2 mana dork which does not hit Scepter threshold by itself. Priest and Tendies do. That's our reasoning.

Re: High Tide/Freed from the Real - We cut HT for the all-in tutor package, since the extra mana didn't outweigh having more raw dig power. For FrtR, we only pick roughly 2 combos and execute those as well as we can. Our choices were Scepter and the Grace/Naus win. FftR is a little bit more mana intensive for needing the right cards to go off, while Scepter just sorta asks for some non-land mana sources. I do agree that HT is a good card, though. Very much so. But it didn't have the punch that it does in storm or Doomsday. We sliced it and didn't miss it.

Re: Birthing Pod - Great card, but not for us. It's a card which finds its home in slower more stax/bears decks. By the time we play Pod and use it, we want to ideally be using the 4 mana to win. It also asks for a lot more cards which will end up hurting the theme of limiting dead cards to a minimum.

Re: Ad Nauseam - Often without. A common line is cast Ad Nauseam, dig, find Angel's Grace, get back Ad Nauseam in some way, and win immediately. Or just find the Scepter combo in the cards you drew. Both are good. It's also a plus that it can also be a - win the game instantly. It's an enormously powerful combo that is often how Esper (read Zur haha) decks win. Hilariously Doomsday in the Zur DD deck isn't really a priority.

I hope this helps answer some of your questions and suggestions about why we built the list the way we did. Thanks for checking it out.

Awesome primer! The exclusion of Lab Maniac and Walking Ballista as well as the inclusion of cards like Plunge into Darkness makes so much sense. Do you think Plunge is worth including in Breakfast Hulk lists?

Megalomania

I think it would sadly be dangerous, since Hulk has more moving parts and less redundancy. I think it might lose you the game too often.

Wow, I completely missed the “remove the rest from the game” part. Thanks!

For Plunge into Darkness, what value of X are you normally paying? I understand that it's situational, however is it typically in the 0-5 range? the 5-10 range?

enpc

Depends on what I need. If I'm digging for only 1 thing, very high, 20ish or more. Otherwise around 10 to 15 on average.

Base it on what you need and if you can lose to exiling all the win cons.

Surprised Strionic Resonator wasn't mentioned in the alternate wincons of the deck. It's combo with Paradox Engine is pretty famous among Arcum Dagsson players, and it can act as a secondary Isochron Scepter in some variations of the combo. Similarly many variants run Devoted Druid and Vizier of Remedies in their lists.

SynergyBuild

In PST though you aren't color restricted, and the Strionic combos ware not preferable over other alternate win conditions which also share cards across combos. Arcum is somewhat restricted in the combos he can play since he is only in mono-.

As far as the Druid combo goes, there isn't a driving force to introduce an infinite mana combo which is summoning sick. It's again more that there are stronger choices available even for alternates as opposed to those two combos being inherently poor. But with the selection of PST, the shortcomings of these combos can essentially be bypassed by choosing a different one as back up.

The alternate win conditions weren't supposed to be exhaustive as a collection, but more the alternates which have been the strongest choices for Thrasios lists but here are not chosen for a mainboard.

Dang, Assassin's Trophy does well here!

Dumb question I'm sure, but any reason for snow covered lands? I don't see any issue running normal basics (no concern with singleton normal basics and Tainted Pact. Thanks!

zwells3

For the snow lands, not really. I guess it's some Lens insurance beyond just being kinda neat. They also don't share a name so if you'd like you can play more.

Thanks, AlwaysSleepy. I have another question, as well. As the win-condition of the deck is to loop spells like Swan Song and Nature's Claim, the tricky part is making it around the table once in order to swing in. One of the key components seems to be drawing (most of) your deck on your first opponent's upkeep, and stopping them (and everyone else) from doing anything.

Where I'm confused is that, without Timetwister, wouldn't you have drawn and discarded most of your library on your own turn while going infinite with Thrasios and looking for all your non-land permanents and spells like Swang Song/Nature's Claim, etc.? If you were unlucky and had to dig deep, you have nothing to reset your library after discarding in your clean up step. Is there any way to "restock" your library without this (expensive) card? Memory's Journey can only do so much if you still want to have things like Silence, Force of Will, and Pact of Negation on each of your opponents' turn. Thanks!

zwells3 can't you loop your deck with Noxious Revival putting Memory's Journey top top, drawing it, shuffling noxious and two other desired cards into your deck, drawing them, rinse and repeat?

Yes, that is certainly the way to do it SynergyBuild. However, my understanding is that you would do this on your own turn to loop the aforementioned Swan Song and Nature's Claim. What if, and I'm likely just missing something obvious here, you had to dig deep off of Thrasios/Infinite mana in order to first get to either or both of those pieces. You can certainly then loop them on your own turn, but eventually you pass and go to your cleanup, pitching down to 7. What does this hand look like in order to stop your (let's say, 3) opponents from playing anything?

If you have more than two desired cards you'd like to shuffle back in (e.g. Silence and two pieces of countermagic in case your opponents have interaction) do you Noxious Revival your Memory's Journey, grab two useful cards + NR, and stack your hand with however many cards you need in each opponent's upkeep? Basically, you don't care if nearly your entire deck is in your graveyard when you pass your turn? As I wrote this out, I think I began to understand it. But please let me know if I'm on track haha. I'm mainly confused as the primer discusses resetting your library with Timetwister before it goes to your opponent's turn, which you obviously can't do with Memory's Journey. What I think is the difference here is that you just need to take a more convoluted route with MJ than with TT.

zwells3

You are right on track. You can sculpt and hold up a bunch of countermagic if you have to pass. If you don't have Timetwister, Memory's Journey will let you shuffle back in Silence + Noxious Revival + Something else and go from there. It's rare for everyone to be able to fight through that. You also get an overloaded Cyclonic Rift the turn before, plus many other things.

It's even stronger now with Memory's Journey since you also get to loop Assassin's Trophy and gut everyone on permanents, so your Journey/Silence line is even harder to break

Hope this helps clarify. You are right though that Memory's Journey does only loop a few cards and you library will mostly be in the graveyard after. Thankfully, with such strong outlets, most decks are simply too paralyzed to do anything.

Hey AlwaysSleepy or ShaperSavant, I really would like to know why you don't run Pull from Eternity. I have personally found it a good card in many situations with a sweet loop at instant speed with Memory's Journey to loop your deck, and with the addition of Noxious Revival in the loop you can easily get back cards from exile.

SynergyBuild

Mostly because it isn't quite needed here with Timetwister, and it's okay to just run Memory's Journey.

I haven't run that card much since needing to pull something back from exile has been really uncommon, and since it isn't needed for the loop, we can play another card.

Though I do agree pretty neat loop!

Hey AlwaysSleepy, I've been enjoying getting know this deck, playing mainly against bloodpod, Gitrog, TCV, and occasionally Tazri FC. The lack of dead cards is fantastic, and you're right in that you can afford to play many outlets early on if necessary, and grab them for use later on. Although I'm no where near proficient piloting, I've hit infinite mana turns 3/4 a reasonable number of times.

One question I have is, should there be one solid "same turn" win? I generally loop outlets to swing for lethal next turn, ideally silencing on everyone's upkeep. However, a win on the same turn you go infinite is certainly less risky. If you happen to get unlucky on a Tainted Pact and lose Silence, this could mean trouble. Is there, or should there be, a reliable same turn win? The post infinite Angel's Grace, brainstorm Yawgmoth's will to top, windfall, and subsequent windfall is one, but do you think it more useful to add demonic consultation and lab man to the package just to win on your infinite mana turn? Lab man, of course, being a dead draw early on. Thanks!